


set the rockets off

by orphan_account



Series: adore u [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 10:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (There’s a sense of disconnect when Jihoon wakes up, an unfamiliar song filtering through the quiet. He realizes ten seconds later that it’s SHINee’s Replay and that his face is buried in a soft flannel sweatshirt, an arm wrapped around his waist.Jihoon is tired and he hasn’t had any caffeine yet and the alarm bells sounding in his head are muted by the urge to turn around and fall back asleep. But Soonyoung’s dancer reflexes are better; he’s already scrambled a few feet back, the tiredness to his face replaced by a kind of hurriedly constructed nonchalance.“Good morning,” he stammers. “I think we got a full three hours of sleep.”And Jihoon thinks—maybe he wouldn’t mind waking up to Soonyoung more often, given that the circumstances were pre-planned and that he had a say in the alarm choice. Maybe he liked the feeling of the crown of his head tucked to Soonyoung’s collarbones and the press of his knees to Soonyoung’s thighs. And then he realizes: maybe he has more of a problem that he’d like to admit.)[For Jihoon, writing love songs is simple. Figuring out where he stands with Soonyoung? That’s a different issue entirely.]





	set the rockets off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rikym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikym/gifts).



> i revived myself just to post this and also to wait for comeback 
> 
> a profuse thank you to everyone who’s here for the last installment of this series. soonhoon was my second ever ship solely because i liked the concept of the choreographer/producer along with the intj/ent(f)p thing 
> 
> disclaimer all of the songs mentioned are here would be different in this au than irl because the composers/lyricists and singers/rappers are switched around

_The first time Jihoon sees Soonyoung is in freshman year, although he doesn’t know it._

_This is Pledis Performing Arts University, so everyone sees everyone at some point. It’s usually in the context of stage lights and theater, but for Jihoon, it’s a damp clear-skied day in the middle of April._

_There’s a boy dancing out on the quad in jeans and a graphic tee. And Jihoon doesn’t do love, at first sight or otherwise, but he’s enamored with the way the boy moves. Like his body was built for motion, carved entirely out of rhythm._

_Jihoon will return to his dorm thirty minutes later with the beginnings of a song scrawled out on his legs in red Sharpie. His roommate, Joshua, will panic, thinking it’s blood, before calming down and getting out the nail polish remover because that’s what he learned about Sharpie removal from the keg parties during freshman orientation. The song is called_ Adore U _and Jihoon doesn’t tell anyone his inspiration. The dancer fades out from his memory after a while, the details of his face blurring with no name attached to it. And that is that, until they meet again, for real this time._

\---

Summer before sophomore year ends quietly, the closing to three months of stasis that Jihoon can’t remember much about. He’s one of the earlier ones to come back, three-quarters of campus still empty. He brings his cardboard boxes into the dorm and stares up at the mysterious stain on the ceiling with a look of apathetic acknowledgement.

The next three days are spent watching random DIY videos and reading far-fetched conspiracy theories that are, if inaccurate, amusing. He makes the attempt to go to one welcome back orientation and considers it good enough after one person nearly passes out from dehydration. At seven PM on day three, he gets a text:

_hey asshole if ur done unpacking meet me at fronting @ 7_

It’s Seungcheol. Jihoon’s really bad at responding to texts— most of the time, he won’t even click on the notification because of his paranoia of read receipts— but Seungcheol is the one of the two exceptions.

_you buying?_ Jihoon texts back.

_yes, u fucking parasite._

Jihoon generally sucks with people, so Seungcheol is someone he’s grateful for, although he’d never say that to his face. The other is Joshua, his roommate, who went overseas for the summer and isn’t coming back until two days later.

He’d posted a picture on Twitter about an hour ago standing in the airport wearing a shirt with a pinwheel design and holding up a v-sign. _Just got back from the states!!!_ He’d gotten a lot of likes. Joshua is one of those guys who people can’t help but fall for, platonically or otherwise, with his calm demeanor and warm aura.

He’s also completely unaware of this. Jihoon’s pretty sure Joshua wouldn’t be hanging out with the likes of him if he knew.

\---

_Fronting_ is about half full when Jihoon walks in, several tables occupied by people sitting around lukewarm soup and sandwiches. It’s not quality cuisine by any means, but it’s way better than the instant ramen Jihoon would be eating if left to his own devices.

Seungcheol gets there a few minutes late, walking over to the booth Jihoon’s claimed and sliding into the seat across from him.

“Hey,” Seungcheol says dryly, cuffing him in the shoulder. “You’re here.”

“Not like I had anything better to do.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes. “Glad you deemed me worth your time. Do you just want your usual?”

“Everything on the menu’s the same, so yeah.”

“Alright, I’ll go the cheap route, then,” Seungcheol says, and heads up to the counter to order. He returns balancing a tray and frisbees a blue and pink box over to Jihoon, containing two wraps stuffed with fried rice.

Jihoon takes a bite. “What’d you do over the summer? You’re really fucking tan, dude.”

Seungcheol had gone to his hometown over the summer, the one he lived in before he moved over to Jihoon’s neighborhood at six years old. Summer had been kind to him, turned him into the personification of blue raspberry popsicles and beach volleyball; at least three people are checking him out at this very moment.

“I’m not even that tan,” Seungcheol protests. “You’re just ridiculously pale in comparison, you look like an extra in a vampire sitcom.”

“I’m very well aware that sunlight hates me, thank you.”

Seungcheol taps a rhythm with his spoon, thinking. “I mean, I didn’t really do much, I guess. Like I crashed over with my grandparents, and I helped out at a summer camp, and then I got a job at this local smoothie place. You know. Usual stuff.”

Counselor Seungcheol; everyone probably loved him. “Aw, look at you, actually being a contributing member to society.”

“That’s debatable, the smoothie place was shit,” Seungcheol laughs. “My coworker didn’t know how to operate a blender and was always cracking racist jokes.”

“Sounds like a great dude.”

“He was. I nearly threw a pineapple at him once.”

Seungcheol shoves another spoonful of rice into his mouth, and Jihoon attempts to push some fallen pieces of chicken back into the tortilla. Seungcheol eyes widen, remembering something. “Oh, and my cousin asked me how my boyfriend was doing.”

The chicken falls back out. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend?”

Seungcheol points with his chopsticks. “Yeah, that’s the thing, I _don’t_ . So you know, I was confused. And then I find out that she meant you. Because she thought _we_ were _dating_.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jihoon says, pulling a face. “That’s so fucked up, dear god. I watched you eat _paste_ in second grade. I have standards.”

“Don’t worry, I’d rather cut off my dick than date you, too. But...  you know. She brought up a good point. Where the hell were you over the summer?”

Jihoon looks down. He’s already eaten both wraps, so he focuses on the grains of rice stuck to the sides of the box. “Places, I guess. I don’t know.”

The reality was that Jihoon had fallen into one of his slumps, the ones that stemmed from being unable to compose and came accompanied with all this other bad shit. He couldn’t think, could barely move. Sometimes he would lie on the ground for hours at a time, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t talk to anyone without being struck with the paralyzing fear that he’d do something wrong. Not even Seungcheol, or Joshua.

Seungcheol says, “I thought you were dead, dude.”

“Yeah, well, here I am,” Jihoon says. “Alive. Unfortunately.”

Seungcheol’s mouth quirks up in a ghost of a smile.  “That’s questionable. Maybe you’re so pale because you’re actually a ghost.”

“...Seungcheol.”

“Maybe someone put cyanide in your spaghetti.”

And the subject of summer drops, but Jihoon knows that Seungcheol’s probably still worried. He’s teased a lot for his _dad tendencies_ — Jihoon’s brought up his rotating cycle of adoptees a couple of times himself— but it all spawns from genuine worry.

It’s okay, though. Jihoon won’t leave him on radio silence again.

\---

Joshua comes back from the United States bearing plastic bags with the airport logo and his usual soft smile. “I brought food,” he announces.

Jihoon isn’t going to admit it out loud, but he missed Hong Joshua a lot.

\---

Jihoon’s professors don’t give him a chance to breathe, the plunge back into the familiar cycle of sleep deprivation and studying as quick as falling off a precipice. Jihoon reacquaints himself with eye circles and the peeling walls of the library by day five.

Two weeks in he comes back in the evening to find, besides Joshua, Seokmin and Seungkwan sprawled out on the floor of their dorm. Jihoon vaguely knows them, Joshua’s friends from vocal class. They’re arguing back and forth, Joshua lying next to them with his arms around his guitar and his eyes closed. Joshua might be praying or meditating or sleeping. Jihoon doesn’t know.

“Hey, Jihoon,” Seungkwan says, scrambling off the ground as soon as Jihoon steps foot into the room. “Please help us with this project? We’re like. Stuck. Very stuck.”

“We’ll pay you in Pringles,” Seokmin adds, getting off the ground as well and offering Jihoon the tube.

There’s about a good three-quarters of it left. Jihoon accepts the pack and sits cross-legged down on the floor, peering over at what Seokmin and Seungkwan are doing. “What are you guys trying to do, anyway?”

Seungkwan explains, “The deal is that we have to write a song.”

That’s Jihoon’s one claim to fame: music. He’s skipped several of the class levels, and some of his original compositions are played by Pledis FM under the name _Woozi_. He doesn’t know how to explain to people that he’s no genius, that he just keeps doing it because there’s nothing else that made him feel as much.

He’s a little bit flattered that they want his help, even though he’s pretty sure this constitutes as being used. “What kind of song are you guys writing?”

“Well, it’s _supposed_ to be a love song,” Seungkwan groans, “except everything Seokmin says is overly generic and everything Joshua suggests always comes back to food.”

Seokmin elbows him. “Not like you’re coming up with anything better.”

“At least I didn’t rip off from the _Haikyuu!!_ soundtrack.”

“Don’t attack _Haikyuu!!_ , you asshole, _Fly High_ was quality music.”

Joshua, eyes still closed, pretends to strike a chord on an air guitar and hums, “I want some nutella pizza~ and if possible a passing grade~”

Jihoon rolls his eyes and starts crossing out lines and adding new ones. Seokmin quietly cheers. “Lee Jihoon, you’re actually a god. Thank you so much.”

Jihoon tilts the page and continues writing. “I’m not an anything. This isn’t even that bad.” It’s true. Beyond the fact some of the verses resemble brainstorms for a halfhearted bakery jingle or opening lines to— well, _Haikyuu!!—_ the rest is fine. And Jihoon knows that Joshua’s good with tunes, so he’s got that part covered.

“Yeah, well, Kwan here always exaggerates everything,” Seokmin laughs.

Seungkwan, on the floor, throws an arm over his head. “Don’t touch me, I’m tired.”

“Get up,” Seokmin says, poking him unsympathetically. Joshua scoots over to where Jihoon is, scrutinizing his corrections. “It’s not even that late.”

“You’re not the one who was stupid enough to take an 8AM lecture,” Seungkwan shoots back, and Seokmin winces at that. “Two weeks in and my brain’s _already_ broken.”

Seokmin gasps. “You have a _brain_?”

Seungkwan punches him.

Joshua looks up, says with a comforting voice, “Hey, Kim Taehyung’s party is this Friday, so you can look forward to that.”

Jihoon doesn’t pay attention to campus culture, but even he’s heard that Taehyung’s parties are legendary. Taehyung himself is warm and kind, but somehow, he and six of his friends always manage to get half of campus hungover for the entirety of next week.

But at this Seungkwan just flops over even more, pathetically etching himself into the carpet. “I can’t go,” he mumbles, and Seokmin sighs and pats him on the head.

Joshua looks mildly horrified at his backfired consolation. “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever… It’s tragic.  I’m going to be out of the loop for the next _month_.” Seungkwan pushes himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck to look at Jihoon, looking like he suddenly thought of something. “Jihoon, you going?”

“No.”

Seungkwan jabs at him with his index finger, slightly maniacal from exhaustion. “Then you should, cause I can’t.”

Yeah, right, because Jihoon could make up for anyone’s presence. “What kind of fucked up logic is that? You high as well as tired?”

“Don’t coerce the guy,” Seokmin says, “he’s already helping us with our homework.”

“I’m not _coercing_ him into doing anything.” Seungkwan argues. He turns to Jihoon. “Like, Seok and I had already made plans, until, you know, I had to cancel, so you could just fill in. I’m pretty sure you know everyone we’re going with. Like, there’s Mingyu—” Jihoon does know him, sort of, he’s one of the baristas at the campus coffee shop _1997_ “— and obviously you know Seokmin, and Joshua—”

Jihoon cuts him off on accident, asking Joshua, “Wait, you’re going?”

Joshua shrugs, a soft smile on his face. “Well, yeah, Mingyu and I are the designated driver duo, you know, triple D—” Jihoon wants to comment on how that sounds like a condom brand, but keeps his mouth shut “—So yeah, I’m going.”

“See?” Seungkwan says. “And then the only other two people other than that are Vernon and Soonyoung.”

Jihoon raises his eyebrows. “No idea who they are.”

“Well,” Seokmin explains, “Vernon is Seungkwan’s—”

“He’s not my anything,” Seungkwan interjects, blushing furiously.

“I was going to say Vernon is Seungkwan’s friend from chemistry class,” Seokmin continues airily, and Joshua stifles a laugh from next to Jihoon. “And Soonyoung is— well, he’s _daaaaamn_ cool. He’s so good at dancing.”

Seungkwan snickers. “Seokmin, control the heart eyes.”

“Everyone and their mom has wanted to bang Kwon Soonyoung at some point,” Seokmin says, completely unabashed. “I still can’t believe I’m friends with him.”

“You know, Soonyoung would be really good with Jihoon.” Jihoon stops his pencil mid-scratch. Seungkwan hasn’t even moved out of his position, like this was just a completely normal thing to say.

“What,” Joshua says, voicing Jihoon’s thoughts, albeit in a significantly more amused tone than Jihoon would’ve preferred.

“I mean, _think about it_ ,” Seungkwan continues, and the sides of the Pringle stab at Jihoon’s throat as he forcibly swallows. “Jihoon writes music, and then Soonyoung choreographs, they’d be like, a whole fucking love song with a cool mv.”

“Seungkwan, you really do need to get some sleep,” Seokmin sighs. Jihoon considers giving him a chip, before he says, “but you’re right, they’d be kind of cute.”

Jihoon needs to stop this. “You do realize I’m _doing your homework for you_ ,” he threatens, pointing at them with his pencil. “So you guys better shut up.”

Seungkwan finally holds his hands up, apologizing, and Jihoon rolls his eyes. He zones out the rest of the conversation after that, which turns back to the topic of Vernon and Seungkwan’s whatever relationship. Joshua mutters, _ignore them_ , and for this Jihoon gives him three of the Pringles.

He finishes up around ten-thirty, and Seungkwan and Seokmin yell out another round of thanks before leaving. “Sorry about them,” Joshua says, after they’re gone. By all rights, Jihoon should be at least a little bit annoyed, but he kind of likes how open the two of them were. Like they considered Jihoon their friend or something.

Joshua works on the song for about an hour after that. Both he and Jihoon have a complicated relationship with sleep— Jihoon’s screwed up his biological clock to the point it no longer functions, and Joshua’s had insomnia ever since he was young. Jihoon mindlessly scrolls through the drafts of songs he attempted to write over the summer. It’s a mess, but maybe he can scavenge something from it.

“Yo,” Joshua says, around midnight, “I’m heading out to grab a snack and then turn out for the night. You want anything?”

Jihoon considers this for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah.” Joshua nods and heads out the door, returning five minutes later with a sandwich covered in crumpled saran wrap. He tears off the wrapper and takes a bite, face neutral.

“How’s your sandwich?” Jihoon asks after a moment.

“Tastes like cardboard.” Another bite. “And feet.”

“Ah.” Jihoon looks back down at his computer, and Joshua sits down next to him, mattress creaking under their combined weight. Jihoon shuts the laptop. Everything in his drafts is colorless and uninspiring. He doesn’t want Joshua to see it.

“Do you actually want to come, on Friday?” Joshua asks. “Like, Kwan was kidding, even if he might not have seemed like it, so no pressure. It might be fun, though.”

Jihoon smiles wryly. “You say this, as designated driver?”

“Alcohol’s not necessary for a relatively good time.”

It’s kind of crazy, _Hong Joshua_ suggesting that he actually go out to a place where pretty much the only option is to get blackout drunk. Jihoon strongly suspects that this has something to do with his general MIA-ness over the summer. It’s also the reason he’s even considering going.

Joshua gets up, stretching, before heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Jihoon figures he should probably try and sleep also. Before he shuts the lights, though, Jihoon impulsively says, “You’re costing me a night with my cereal.”

“Hmm?” Joshua says, confused for a second before understanding. “Oh. _Oh_. Well— I apologize to both you and your Fruit Loops, then.”

“Apology accepted,” Jihoon says, mouth curving up in the dark. “Night.”

“Night, Jihoon. Sleep well.” And Jihoon kind of wants to take back what he said, but he’s not going to. One party’s not going to kill him, even if it’s Kim Taehyung’s.

\---

On Friday Jihoon comes to the conclusion that the clothes in his wardrobe are kind of sad. It’s not anything tangible— like, nothing in there could be described as being two thousand and late— but they’re wallflower clothes, _don’t look at me_ clothes. In the end Jihoon decides he’s absolutely not going to be someone who spends more than five minutes getting ready and just throws on a gray sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.

It’s not like he’s planning on getting laid tonight or anything.

Perhaps it’s a good move because Joshua looks the same as he always does, too, although Joshua always looks pretty and composed, like the edge of rose petal or the tuned blade of a sword. “Alright,” he says cheerfully. “Let’s go?”

Jihoon’s not quite sure what the plan is, but Joshua seems to know the drill, so Jihoon just goes along with it. They run into Seokmin first, who Jihoon can tell has pregamed a little bit; his previous warm smile is tinted with something sexy.

“Wow, Jihoon, you actually came!” he says.

Jihoon shoves back his instinct response of _yeah and I’m_ _kind of regretting this already_ and instead says, “Joshua convinced me.”

“Nice.”

Seokmin tosses him a flask. Jihoon takes a sip— Coke mixed with rum. Eh, why not. He drinks a couple of mouthfuls and hands it back to Seokmin, who screws it shut and tucks it back into his pocket.

“Okay, so, Vern’s running late but that’s just him,” he says. “And we’re going to regroup with Soonyoung a block away, and Mingyu should be coming right about now—”

“I’m here!” someone yells. Mingyu. Mingyu’s out of breath and he’s got flour on his shirt, but he still manages to look gorgeous because apparently he’d won the genetic jackpot for this generation and possibly the next. “Just got off my shift, sorry. Oh— hi, Jihoon!”

“Hi,” Jihoon says, semi-warily.

“My coworker thinks you’re cute,” Mingyu tells him.

“Th...anks?” Jihoon stammers, and Joshua shakes with laughter next to him.

Vernon comes after another ten minutes; Jihoon scrutinizes him, this guy who has unconfirmed relations with Seungkwan. He’s very pretty, to say the least, wearing red jacket and bearing a small thermos that looks innocent but could probably get the entire city drunk. “Hi,” Vernon says to Jihoon. “You go by Woozi, right?”

Jihoon nods, surprised, and Vernon says, “Oh, dude, I’m one of the hosts of Pledis FM, your songs are fucking lit. Nice to meet you.”

“Don’t steal a stop sign tonight,” Joshua pleads, and Vernon just shrugs.

\---

The anxiety sets in almost as soon as Jihoon steps a foot onto the grounds. It’s too early for there to be any real evidence of anything yet, but what’s worrisome is that (1) Joshua looks— drunk? and (2) Vernon _doesn’t_. “Joshua?” Jihoon asks. “You good?”

“Hmm?” Joshua asks, turning around. “I’m fine.”

Mingyu parks about a block away and they meet Soonyoung, who’s standing on the corner of the sidewalk. Soonyoung looks vaguely familiar, the way almost everyone on campus looks vaguely familiar, and Jihoon can say in a completely objective way that he’s ridiculously hot.

Eye makeup shouldn’t look be allowed to look that good on anyone.

It’s not even funny how out of his depth Jihoon is. Even less funny is that everyone seems to disappear once they’re inside the house, including Joshua, until it’s just him and Soonyoung awkwardly standing around in the living room. And out of all of them Jihoon knows Soonyoung the _least_.

“You’re Jihoon, right?” Soonyoung says, the same way that Vernon had.

Jihoon tells himself to relax. New people. It’s fine. “Yeah. And you’re Soonyoung.”

“Don’t believe anything that Seungkwan told you about me,” he says, and it’s enough to surprise a small laugh out of Jihoon.

“Okay, then.”

Soonyoung thumbs-up and goes to get one of the solo cups that someone’s handing out, staring suspiciously at the contents. Jihoon takes it and also looks. “Do you want some radioactive punch?”

“Uh,” Jihoon says. “Christ, is that fucking _glitter_?”

“I think it is. it’s super pretty, actually. I kind of want to drink it.” He raises it to his mouth and takes a sip, tilting his head in consideration.

“Tastes like… tangerines? And a shit ton of vodka.”

Jihoon doesn’t even know Soonyoung, but he’s already got this aura around him like he’s easy to talk to. And Jihoon, accustomed as he is to being alone, kind of hopes Soonyoung isn’t going to abandon him too. But that sounds clingy. Maybe he should just leave, at this point, call Joshua when he gets back.

“What do you even do at these things?” Jihoon murmurs.

Soonyoung takes another mouthful, and Jihoon realizes he’s heard. “Dude, you tell me,” he says. “I don’t go to these things very often. I think the last one I went to… I showed up and then Mingyu found everyone in the end and a bunch of shit happened in the middle. I also lost some of my clothes. That was not good.”

“Nice,” Jihoon says. “... And yeah, if you can’t tell, I don’t go to these things often either.”

Soonyoung shrugs. “But I really _can’t_ , you’re doing fine. We could hang out for the night, if you want to. I promise I won’t puke on you or anything.”

And Jihoon nods, deciding that he even though he probably won’t talk to Soonyoung again after tonight Jihoon will tell anyone off if they decide to trash-talk Soonyoung, _just_ for that offer. “I’m not sure if I completely believe that, but sounds like a plan.”

Soonyoung beams and passes one of the solo cups to Jihoon, and Jihoon drinks. It does taste a lot like tangerines.

\---

Thirty minutes later Jihoon’s head is starting to swim in a way that makes it hard for him to form coherent thoughts. He vaguely thinks that maybe he should find out where Joshua is, but then he forgets.

To be honest, Jihoon probably needs Soonyoung’s company more than Soonyoung needs his, because Soonyoung seems to know half of campus and then some. But he stays by Jihoon’s side, and Jihoon somehow learns, through conversation that has to get louder and louder to be heard over the din over the course of the night, that Soonyoung’s on scholarship (partially why he doesn’t have time to go anywhere) and that he’s a dance major.

“You should dance, then,” Jihoon suggests logically. He’s drunk and his voice is coming out too loud, but he nearly has to scream over the music.

“Right now?”

“No, fucking Wednesday.”

Soonyoung laughs, face flushed. “This music sucks, though,” he says. “Which doesn’t matter, but like, do you _actually_ want to see me dance?”

“Why? Dance, I don’t care.”

“Can you dance with me, then?”

“Fucking hell— you know, why not.”

It’s probably not something that sober Jihoon would’ve agreed to, but Soonyoung grins and starts moving his hips along to the song, and it’s obvious that he’s good even in the most simple of movements. Jihoon feels kind of inferior next to him, but Soonyoung’s not laughing at him.

(Soonyoung’s looking at him and Jihoon doesn’t know anything about this sort of stuff but in a different universe, maybe it would’ve ended up in a one-night stand or making out against the wall. But in this one, Jihoon stops after three songs or so and Soonyoung is too shy and too new to really do anything except stare, and at this point the percentage of alcohol fueling their interaction skews the results anyway.)

All Soonyoung says is, “You’re a pretty good dancer,” and Jihoon says, “thank you,” and then the two of them end up running into Seungcheol and playing a makeshift game of beer pong, and then Jihoon doesn’t really remember what happened next.

\---

Jihoon wakes up at six in the morning feeling like his brain has been replaced by cracked marbles and cotton balls. He peels himself off the floor, sees Seokmin and Vernon passed out next to him, and contemplates going back to sleep.

“Hey,” someone whispers. Soonyoung. “You awake?”

Jihoon cranes his neck. Soonyoung has already changed back into loose clothes, makeup scrubbed off his face, looking tired but significantly less like he got steamrolled by a bulldozer than Jihoon feels. The barest hint of citrus-colored sunlight peeks through the curtains.

Jihoon frowns. “I wish I weren’t. Good fucking morning.”

“Amen,” Soonyoung says. “I think we’re in Seokmin’s room, Mingyu dropped us off here. They probably won’t be waking up anytime soon, so… wanna go outside?”

Jihoon massages his temples, considering. His mouth tastes like a cross between sandpaper and rotten fruit. Beside him, Seokmin’s sleep-mumbling something about being too broke to purchase four versions of the same album. “I’ll take you up on that offer, but first,” Jihoon says, “Let me wash my face.”

Soonyoung nods, and Jihoon stumbles to the bathroom, a faint hint of nausea rolling through his stomach, and turns on the faucet. He feels kind of gross, and there’s not much he can do about it, but that’s fine. A few minutes later he exits out into the hall and regroups with Soonyoung, who has his hands in his pockets and is staring off into space.

“Seok sleeps like a talking bag of bricks, I forgot,” Soonyoung says.

“When’d you wake up?” Jihoon asks.

“Um… maybe around four, I guess? I played _Fruit Ninja_ for like, two hours. I’ve never been able to sleep when other people were around. It’s weird.”

“I get that,” Jihoon says. “I’m just bad at sleeping in general.”

Soonyoung nods. “Also relatable.”

The two of them walk out into the street. It’s a little bit chilly, and Jihoon shivers, pulling his jacket tighter around himself, fingers red and chafing. Soonyoung seems completely immune to the cold. “Wanna get breakfast?” he asks. “There’s a waffle house nearby.”

“Do you not have a hangover?”

“No, I definitely do, you could make a mixtape out of the pounding in my head. But food is always good. So? Yes or no?”

And Jihoon is by no means hungry— he kind of wishes stomachs weren’t a thing right at this moment— but for some reason, he nods. Soonyoung beams and buys a paper pack of pancakes, eating it with the two of them sitting out on the curb. There’s a nice feeling, Saturday morning with most of campus still hungover and asleep, even if Jihoon’s ass is freezing in his jeans and his mouth is going numb.

“Isn’t that Mingyu’s car?” Soonyoung asks idly, pointing to one of the lone cars in the parking lot.

Jihoon squints— now that he thinks about it, it _is_. He thinks he can see Mingyu asleep on the wheel, too. “Might be, yeah.”

Soonyoung takes a bite of pancake. “Sometimes I feel bad he has to deal with us.”

Agreed. “What’d you end up doing last night, anyway? I don’t remember anything.”

“Shit, you’re asking me to use my brain,” Soonyoung groans. “Um… I don’t know. Some girl gave me her number.” He turns his arm at Jihoon, who can see that he’s got a string of numbers Sharpied onto the skin. “What about you? And your boyfriend?”

Jihoon’s glad he doesn’t have any food in his mouth because he would’ve choked, again.

“I’m sorry, my— what?” he sputters. “I wasn’t aware I had a boyfriend?”

“Oh,” Soonyoung says, an indecipherable expression on his face. “Um, last night I think we ran into this guy who we played beer pong with, and I kind of assumed you two were together, so I left cause you know, I didn’t want to. Interrupt anything.”

“You weren’t going to interrupt anything. Are you talking about Choi _Seungcheol_? We’ve been friends since we were in fucking diapers. We’re not… _no_.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Soonyoung says, half-laughing. “No boyfriend, got it.”

“He’s just a really touchy drunk,” Jihoon adds, because for some reason he feels like he has to drive the point home. He doesn’t want Soonyoung thinking he’s like, taken, or anything. But that’s stupid. He bats that thought away.

“Hey,” Soonyoung says, awkwardly changing the subject, “was I the only one last night that thought Joshua might’ve been a little bit drunk last night?”

Jihoon’s eyes widen. “Oh, shit,” he says. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and sighs in relief when he sees that Joshua’s texted him a thumbs-up. “I think he’s okay… the message is from like, half an hour ago.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” There’s a standstill for a moment, and then Jihoon stands up and says, “I guess I should get going, then. It was nice to meet you.”

“Alright, see you later,” Soonyoung says, and Jihoon wonders if they will.

\---

Jihoon’s not good at being a friend, but he does have enough decency to feel guilty when he arrives back at the dorm to find Joshua curled up in a fetal position on the floor, head tucked under his arm. Jihoon sits next to him, legs crossed.

“Joshua? Are you okay?”

“My head hurts a lot. Aspirin’s not working,” Joshua mumbles. “Also, he’s so pretty.”  

Jihoon manages, after several minutes and a good amount of logic, to string together a semi-coherent telling in which Vernon and Joshua’s flasks got switched— they’d bought identical ones because they’d gotten them as a double package during a store deal— and this guy, Jeonghan, had let him crash over for the night.

“I gave him my pack of Sour Patch gum,” Joshua says. “And then I texted Mingyu to tell him I was alive. Unfortunately.”

_This_ is what concerns Jihoon the most. “Wait, are you okay? I’m usually the one who does the death jokes, he didn’t drug you or anything?”

“You don’t understand, Jihoon.” Joshua’s eyes are terrified. “He was. So. Pretty.”

\---

Seungkwan and Seokmin come over again a week later to finalize their song for vocal class, claiming they want Jihoon to tell them whether it sounds good or not. Jihoon dishes out some criticism just on principle— after the initial obstacle with the lyrics, they didn’t have any problems. Joshua’s amazing with music theory and acoustics, and Seungkwan and Seokmin are basically vocal geniuses.

What Jihoon’s quickly learning, though, is that rarely ever does the conversation stay on topic when Seokmin and Seungkwan are around. It’s not that they’re not hard workers— their concentration is laser-sharp when it comes to music— but after two or three hours their talk of music ends up splitting off into seventeen different directions.

“Jihoon,” Seungkwan says, because now they’re discussing the party and even though Seungkwan didn’t actually go, he could probably pretend he did by how much he seems to know. “Soonyoung—”

Seokmin immediately slams a hand over Seungkwan’s mouth. “ _Shut up_.”

“What?” Jihoon demands, and Joshua, while pretending not to have any interest in their conversation, listens intently.

“It’s nothing,” Seokmin says nervously, and Jihoon shoots daggers over at him. “Um—”

He pulls his hand away with a surprised yelp, Seungkwan having licked his palm. “I was just _saying_ , before Seokmin here so _rudely_ interrupted,” Seungkwan says, rolling his eyes, “Soonyoung’s got a showcase coming up for dance, so I showed him some of your songs, and he says he likes your music—”  

Seokmin mumbles something under his breath that Jihoon can’t catch. Seungkwan carries on. “So like, he was basically wondering if you could compose something for him? He said he’d pay you and all that.”

Jihoon’s actually done a couple of commissions before— he’s been thinking of setting up an official thing on his webpage.

“Yeah, sure,” he says slowly. “Is that all?”

Seungkwan nods. “Basically.” He gives Jihoon Soonyoung’s phone number, and Jihoon stares at the digits keyed into his contacts list. He doesn’t really know how to describe how he feels toward Soonyoung— it doesn’t really feel like normal friendship, which he’s always had develop gradually— but music is music.

He finds he doesn’t mind the idea of talking to Soonyoung again.

\---

[ **me:** hey this is jihoon

**soonyoung:** did seungkwan give u my number or smthn

**me:** yeah he said you wanted me to write a song for your showcase?

_Soonyoung is typing_ …]

\---

The next day Jihoon meets Soonyoung at _Fronting_ at seven. Soonyoung orders a bowl of rice and Jihoon gets his usual wrap, which is twenty percent off today.

“Seokmin’s told me before that you were Woozi, but it’d slipped my mind,” Soonyoung says apologetically, after working his way through half the rice in about seventeen seconds flat. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that at the party.”

“Dude, it’s completely fine.”

“ _No_ , it’s _not_ , it’s like I’d been hanging out with Taemin for the entire night and I didn’t even know it? I still can’t believe you wrote _Adore U_. It’s basically drugs in MP3 format.”

“Thank you,” Jihoon mumbles. “But I’m really not anything.”

He’s not good with compliments. Especially not with such sincere ones. It’s embarrassing how much he needs them, but he never knows how to respond. Soonyoung seems to get that, though, only rolls his eyes at Jihoon’s floundering and continues to inhale his rice at an alarming pace.

“I’m excited to see what you’ll write for me.”

Oh— yeah. “You’re going to have to specify what you want, though.”

Soonyoung purses his lips, thankfully not saying, _surprise me._  It’s a random observation but Soonyoung has a really full pout, like he’s concentrating all his cuteness into the shape of his lips. “Um… I mean, it’s for dance, if that helps. So it should probably have a more heavy and fast beat and a modern sort of vibe…”  

Jihoon opens up a notes document on his phone and types it down. It’s interesting to see how Soonyoung’s focus immediately sharpens when he starts discussing logistics, like he switched to an entirely different mode. “You’ve thought a lot about this.”

Soonyoung nods, says, “Yeah. I’ve wanted to do this for some time, since the summer, probably. Choreography comes naturally to me, but songwriting does not.”

“When’s your showcase?”

“Sometime before winter break, there hasn’t been a set date yet… dude, I’m working with these three guys, Chan and Jun and Minghao? I’m like actually really scared, it shouldn’t be legal to be that fucking _good_.”

Jihoon kind of wants to know what Soonyoung looks like onstage. “And you’re not?”

Soonyoung shrugs. “I’m okay, I guess,” he says evasively, and there’s something about it that Jihoon immediately knows that he’s probably the best of the best. “I’ll try not to let your song down, though. And right, I need to pay you for that. How much?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Jihoon’s debated over just giving Soonyoung the song for free, actually. “You don’t need to pay right now, I haven’t written the song for you yet.”

“Ah,” Soonyoung says, eyes crinkling. “Pre-ordering isn’t an option?”

“No, because who knows if you’ll want a refund. I’ll have the song done for you in about a week, probably, so I’ll just send it to you over text.”

Soonyoung sighs dramatically. “You’re amazing.” Jihoon shoves down the blood that threatens to color his cheeks. “And fine, I won’t pay you. But only because I don’t have my wallet on me. Apparently I put an egg tart in my pocket instead.”

\---

Jihoon gets started on the song almost as soon as he gets home. He’s had an idea for a while now, this is an excuse to write it. It’s called _Highlight._

The one issue he can foresee with this project is that Seungcheol is fairly busy for these couple days because of a project, and Seungcheol’s the one who usually lends his rapping abilities, but he puts that out of his mind for now so he can focus on the lyrics.

Joshua, when Jihoon shows him the rough drafts, immediately offers to pull out his guitar and mark down chords. He waves off Jihoon’s weak protests that it’s fine, he can do it himself.

“I kind of owe you,” he says. “You help me with music all the time, I’m just returning the favor.”

“Suit yourself,” Jihoon says, although he gets that, not wanting to be in debt even with a friend. “What do you think? Is it— good, or whatever?”

“Friend bias aside? It’s great. This is one of my favorites.”

Jihoon shrugs uncomfortably. “Yeah… I was just trying to fit it with the mood Soonyoung was describing, with his showcase. Glad it’s not a total failure.”

“Stop with the self-deprecation,” Joshua says, rolling his eyes. “You’re good. You _know_ you’re good. Soonyoung knows you’re good, too. That’s why he asked you.”

Jihoon picks at a stray thread of carpet, kind of wishing he had the paper in front of him now just so he would have something to do with his hands. “You ever see him dance?”

“No, I haven’t,” Joshua admits. “But I’ve heard stuff.”

Jihoon dips his chin. At this point in time he’s no longer afraid of songwriting, although summer was a different story. Three to four minutes; all he had to do was find a tune to fill the time with. But he’s always afraid that the end result isn’t up to par. Some of the pressure is alleviated this time around because he knows that people are going to be focusing more on the dance than the song, but he doesn’t want to let Soonyoung down.

“I just wanna know where you get this stuff,” Joshua says, and Jihoon realizes he’s talking about the lyrics. “Like, where do all the feelings come from?”

The truth is that maybe Jihoon is making wishes set in verse. He’s always been writing about parallel universes and _other people_ who get these kinds of stories because he’s never let himself thinking about the possibility.

“I don’t know either,” Jihoon says. “I hate couples. Love is pointless.”

“You should make that the chorus for Highlight.”

“Maybe I should. Maybe I should also make the bridge about setting fire to Walmart during Valentine’s Day and wanting to kill everyone who makes out in front of me.”

“Maybe you could stop short of murder and arson. They interrogate the roommate first, you know.”

Mingyu inadvertently solves the rap problem a few days later when he barges into his practice room and tells him, a rather starstruck kind of hopeful, that he’s got a friend named Wonwoo that’s really good at rapping. Jihoon has heard some stuff around campus about those two— he might be the smallest bit invested at this point.

Wonwoo is, as Mingyu told him, a good rapper. He’s got this intimidatingly deep voice that makes his voice seem deceptively casual, but there’s all this finesse and control under it that Jihoon kind of admires. Wonwoo doesn’t seem very apt to talk, either, which is fine with Jihoon. They get it recorded relatively quickly, and Wonwoo smiles when Jihoon asks him if they can work together sometime again.

All in all Jihoon gets _Highlight_ finalized in six days, and he doesn’t regret staying up late and having to prop his eyelids up with large doses of caffeine on hours in between. The final result isn’t perfect, but Jihoon likes it. It feels real.

\---

Jihoon was originally just going to send the song over and have that be the end, but then Soonyoung texts him that he needs to pay him— really, Jihoon would’ve done it for free, but he doesn’t know how to say that— and asks if Jihoon can meet him in the dance building at six.

_we’re on five minute break rn_ , he texts, _so i gtg. but it’s building h room 17 walk in and turn left_.

Soonyoung must have been really tired or something because Room 17 is nowhere even _near_ the left, and Jihoon doesn’t have a very good sense of direction, so it takes a good fifteen minutes to navigate to the classroom.

The door is open when gets there, and Jihoon situates himself outside, back against the wall. He tilts his head as far as he can go without being in anyone’s line of sight, and Jihoon thinks he can catch a glimpse of orange hair but isn’t sure. He ends up watching this other guy for the last few minutes of class. Jihoon doesn’t give a fuck about physical appearance, but this guy is a really good dancer.

The practice session winds down in a quarter of an hour, and Jihoon doesn’t even have time to blink before Soonyoung’s skidding across the linoleum flooring. His hair and shirt is plastered to his skin with sweat.

“Hey, Jihoon. You haven’t been waiting outside too long, have you?”

“Not really, ten minutes at most. What I saw was pretty promising, though.” Soonyoung beams, and Jihoon tacks on, “I mean, you were too far back for me to see, but…”  

“Oh,” Soonyoung says, deflating a little. “I mean, that’s probably for the best, today was kind of an off day. Did anything we did catch your eye, though?”

“There was this one guy I saw who was really good,” Jihoon admits.

“Who?”

“Uh… the one in the black. No, shit, the _other_ one in the black, uh, next to the one in green— I think that’s him.”

“Oh, that’s Jun,” Soonyoung says, a note of understanding to his voice. “Yeah, it’s really hard not to watch him, right? I lowkey had a crush on him for like, two weeks.”

He says it so casually, and Jihoon shifts, uncomfortable, reminding himself that he’s here to give Soonyoung the song. “Yeah, um… I can see why,” he says slowly. “And— also, dude. I need you to listen to _Highlight_. So you can tell me if you like it.”

Soonyoung grins. “I’m like ninety-nine percent sure I will.”

He makes _give me_ motions for the headphones and Jihoon hands them to him, a little bit nervous. Seungcheol and Joshua had told him it was good, but it’s Soonyoung’s song. Jihoon presses play, and Soonyoung’s mouth drops open five seconds in.

Jihoon thinks that’s a good sign.

Three minutes drag past, and Soonyoung slips the headphones off and hands them back to Jihoon. “Give me a second,” he says, mouth on the edge of a smile, and Jihoon knows he had nothing to be worried about. “I think you just killed me.”

“Not another one, I haven’t buried the first body yet.”

Soonyoung shakes his head. “I mean, I’m not going to just start screaming in the middle of the hallway, but I kind of want to. That song was so good. What the actual _fuck_.”

“Thank you,” Jihoon says, embarrassed, berating himself for his inability to receive compliments.

Soonyoung fishes out fifty thousand won from his duffel bag and hands it to him. “Who are the people in here?” he asks. “Unless you can change your voice on demand. I wouldn’t be surprised, at this point.”

“No shit I can’t. The one singing is my roommate Joshua— you know, the one who babysits the drunks— and the one rapping is Wonwoo. I don’t know if you know him?”

Soonyoung makes a _so-so_ motion with his hand. “I didn’t know he was so good at rap. But everyone at Pledis is talented. I should’ve figured.”

Jihoon nods, and taps a few buttons to send the file over to Soonyoung. He wonders, of sorts, _what now_ , because he and Soonyoung haven’t crossed paths before and Jihoon’s always had trouble holding onto people. But he thinks, it’ll be okay.

\---

So this is how it works:

Soonyoung texts him most days. And again, Jihoon sucks at texting, feels that familiar stab of anxiety every time Soonyoung’s number shows up onscreen, but after awhile it’s kind of like— like he doesn’t know what he’d do if the messages stopped.

He quietly adds Soonyoung to the list of people he’s now comfortable messaging, along with Seungcheol and Joshua. It’s a relative thing, because Jihoon’s always been the kind of person to leave people hanging for a good fifteen minutes and forget to reply for hours on end, but there’s a kind of stability to the way Soonyoung texts that curbs that impulse. He sends him something once or twice a day, the most random observations.

**soonyoung:** jihoon… do u ever just like

**soonyoung:** appreciate that ramen is a thing that exists

**me:** what brought this on?

**soonyoung:** im stuck outside the dance building waiting for seok and im rly hungry

[4 minutes later]

**soonyoung:** update: i have found m n ms in my pocket

**soonyoung:** there’s a lot of green ones im happy

**me:** are you sure you’re not eating skittles?

**soonyoung:** no theyre fucking m7ms

**soonyoung:** seokmin doesnt get any tho bc hes a late asshole

Jihoon doesn’t respond because he’s also a late asshole, but he’s got a little smile on his face as he continues doing his worksheet.

And then there’s the fact that Jihoon runs into him every once in awhile. It shouldn’t be surprising, actually, given that they’re on the same campus and have mutual friends. Maybe they’ve always been running into each other, and Jihoon just never registered it because he didn’t know Soonyoung then.

But it’s midterm season, and Jihoon’s in line when the door opens with a gust of cold air and Soonyoung walks in, only wearing a sweatshirt despite the fact it’s only slightly above freezing.

“Hey, Jihoon,” Soonyoung says, spotting him and jogging over. “You look dead.”

“Thanks, it’s for fashion week,” Jihoon says dryly. “And I _am_ dead.”

“Ah,” Soonyoung says. “Your eye circles are very impressive. A fucking look.”

Soonyoung doesn’t look dead. It’s probably not possible for Soonyoung to look dead, maybe just operating at a lower wattage than normal. “Do you want me to buy you coffee?” Soonyoung asks.

“Are you hitting on me?” Jihoon blurts out.

Soonyoung blushes, but retorts, “I’m trying to be nice, asshole. I could take it back—”

Jihoon’s sleep-deprived but he’s not stupid. Free coffee is free coffee. “No, no, dude, I’ll take it. Thank you. You’re a fucking lifesaver.”

“I hate being a nice person,” Soonyoung mutters, and the two of them get in line. Mingyu’s handling the counter, looking harassed and even more dead than half the students combined, listlessly pushing the buttons of the register with a streak of flour on his cheek.  

“I’ve had ten people ask me today for a Pumpkin Spice Latte,” he says. “Please do not join that list. I will actually fucking kill you.”

“Stay strong, Gyu,” Soonyoung says, and Mingyu just sighs, like, _I’m done with life_. The two of them order, keeping it as simple as possible because Mingyu looks like he might upend the entire tabletop at the slightest push, and Soonyoung pays. He fortunately has a wallet instead of an egg tart this time, although he’s managed to (somewhat impressively) crumple up every viable bill in it.

“This is disgusting,” Soonyoung sighs, looking mournfully at his cup. “I don’t get why people drink this stuff on purpose.”

Jihoon shrugs. “It gets the job done.”

Soonyoung pulls a face, reluctantly acquiescing. Jihoon situates himself in one of the side tables and pulls out his textbook from his backpack. “Are you staying here, or nah?”

“Hmm? No, I’m about to head back,” Soonyoung says. “I’ll see you.”

“Alright, see you, then,” Jihoon echoes, and Soonyoung waves before exiting. Jihoon focuses on the page, text swimming in front of his eyes, and takes another sip of his drink. It’s predictably watery, bitter against the roof of his mouth, but it’s warm.

\---

Winter arrives with a gust of cold air and the impending blizzard of finals, along with holiday-themed parties and snowflake-shaped cookies. Joshua takes home instant hot chocolate packets and Jihoon breaks out the oversized sweaters, ignoring Seungcheol’s teasing about how they make him even less intimidating than usual.

It’s the tail end of November when there’s rapid-fire knocking on the door. Joshua uncrosses his legs from their previous pretzel formation and answers; Seungkwan tumbles in, snowflakes in his hair and cheeks red from the cold. “Are you guys going to go see the dance showcase?” he demands. “Tickets are on sale right about now.”

“What brought this on?” Joshua asks curiously. “I didn’t know you danced.”

The look of disgust on Seungkwan’s face is rather comical. “I _don’t,_ Joshua, there’s a fucking reason why I stick to singing. The promo’s for Soonyoung. We have a bet.”

“Ah,” Joshua says, voice and expression dry. “That explains some things.”

“If I can get fifty people to go, he has to buy me dinner for the next month. And like, y’all know— I’m broke. So. Please?” Seungkwan’s lilt is remarkably convincing.

Jihoon, by all means, should go. He has a habit of attending these things, anyway, to see what he can improve, but this showcase has the added fact that he wrote the song for Soonyoung’s act, which Seungkwan probably knows and is probably mercilessly exploiting. “I’m going,” he says.

“I’ll go too, then,” Joshua says. “Support the cause.”

“I love both of you,” Seungkwan sighs, and hands the two of them tickets, carrying out the needed transaction. “Cool, that’s like, ten people already. Soon’s going down.”

“Have you seen his act?” Jihoon asks curiously, unable to help himself.

He looks down after that, busying himself with the papers in front of him and the designs on his socks. Seungkwan plops down on the floor, in no hurry now that he’s properly pulled off his sale, and says, “No. Soon’s always secretive about these things, even if he’s really bad at not spoiling. He just said it was going to be the highlight of the exhibit.”

Next to him, Jihoon thinks he can hear Joshua choking into his tea.

“Nice,” Joshua says, after he’s recovered. “Do we need to bring roses or anything?”

Seungkwan smiles, amused. “Roses are generic. Just show up and you’ll be fine.”

\---

The parking lot is crammed full when Jihoon and Joshua make their way to the auditorium, a light blanket of snow crunching underneath their shoes. Joshua’s squirreled away a jumbo pack of sour gummies in his coat pocket, because neither of them are above contraband to avoid overpriced concessions.

“Wait up!” someone calls, and it almost doesn’t register to Jihoon that it’s to the two of them. The guy hurrying over is— the first word that pops into Jihoon’s head is _pretty—_ despite the fact most of him is swallowed up in a puffy blue coat. “Shua! And Shua’s…?”

Joshua seems very intently focused on the snow. _Interesting_. “Hey, Jeonghan. That’s Jihoon, my roommate.”

Jeonghan beams at Jihoon. “ _You’re_ the genius musician that Shua told me about!”

He syncs up his pace to match up with them. Sunlight glints off his hair; it makes him look almost unreal. Joshua seems to be having difficulties regaining his usual composure. “Are you coming here to watch anyone in particular, or…?”

“I’m here to embarrass my friend Chan. My seat’s in the seventeenth row, but I’ll manage it somehow. What about you guys?”

“Wait,” Jihoon says slowly. “Chan? Is he in an act with someone named Soonyoung?”

Jeonghan blinks, snowflakes in his eyelashes, looking like he just discovered sliced bread. “Yeah, that Chan. And so _you’re_ the Jihoon that wrote the song for their act. So many things make sense now.”

“Small world.”

“Pledis campus,” Jeonghan says. “You can’t walk five feet without ramming into talent.”

Jihoon quietly decides that he likes Jeonghan for the time being, especially since Joshua’s smiling and his eyes are downcast in a kind of starstruck manner. The three of them enter the lobby, Jihoon pulling off his hood in relief for the warmth. There’s a couple of volunteers holding signs, directing people around.

The auditorium is half full when  they get there, Jeonghan regretfully waving goodbye to them and taking a seat three rows back. Joshua’s obtained one of the programs and is flipping through the pages, gummies liberated from his coat pocket.

Jihoon is obviously more on the musical side of things, so it’s interesting to see dance culture. _Highlight’s_ in the second half according to the program. There’s a shit ton of good ones before it, though; it would’ve been worth watching even if Jihoon didn’t have any personal investment in it. A group of seven guys in particular at the very middle of the show get a lot of applause.

But Jihoon’s not prepared when the curtains sweep open and the opening notes of _Highlight_ begin to play. Next to him, he can hear Joshua suck in a breath, and Jihoon would do so too, had he any oxygen to spare. It’s hard to recognize Soonyoung, a little bit because of the stage lights, but also because— what the actual hell?

Jihoon’s never seen Soonyoung dance before. He’s completely different when he’s onstage, this boy that belongs underneath technicolor spotlights and the heat of hundreds of eyes. The choreography is _mindblowing_. All four of them are incredibly good dancers, and they turn Jihoon’s song into something beautiful. Maybe this was what his lyrics were missing. Soonyoung understood his song better than he did.

The theater flips their shit when the last note of the song dies out. Jihoon claps as soon as he remembers how to operate his limbs again, and next to him Joshua is screaming into the din, hands cupped around his mouth.

“That was amazing,” Joshua says, eyes wide in the half-dark.

Then he starts violently coughing. “Are you— are you okay?” Jihoon asks, not quite sure if asking this question is hypocrisy when he himself feels like the world’s been tilted off-axis.

“Forgot I had a gummy in my mouth,” Joshua wheezes, waving him off. “I’m fine.”

\---

The showcase concludes and Jihoon stands up, legs feeling like columns of rubber, and attempts to push his way to the exit without losing track of Joshua. The lobby is even more crowded than it was before.

Jihoon, despite what Seungkwan told him, kind of wishes he had flowers right now. The only thing he could give Soonyoung if he ran into him right now are congratulations, and Jihoon has never been very good with spoken words. He flounders around in the sea of people for awhile, until he hears his name being called.

“Jihoon! Lee Jihoon!” It’s Soonyoung, eyes lined with stage makeup and his jacket falling off his shoulders, wearing a blinding grin like he _hadn’t_ just murdered the floor half an hour ago with his hip thrusts. “You came!”

“Y-yeah,” Jihoon says. Joshua’s nowhere to be found right now.

“Did you like it?”

Scattered words float around Jihoon’s mind, unable to really form a coherent sentence,. “You were really good. The four of you were really good.”

Soonyoung beams. seeming to accept Jihoon’s shit excuse of a compliment.

“Jun did really well today, he’s getting _swarmed_. I guess I’ll just leave him to drown in that, then.” He pauses, takes a deep breath, like he’s got so many things in his mind that they’ve got to fight each other for the floodgate. “I heard a bunch of good things about your song, by the way. After we danced.”

“It definitely sounded good in the context of your choreography.”

Soonyoung pushes back his hair, _nervous_ , and Jihoon gets this sense that something’s not right. But then someone calls Soonyoung’s name and he cranes his head in the other direction. “I think I have to go now, it was really cool that you came, though. I… um… Jihoon, would you mind waiting for me, though? I need to ask you something.”

Jihoon’s confused. “Yeah, sure.”  

Soonyoung dips his chin, a look Jihoon can’t decipher on his face, before his mouth pulls up again in a cheerful, post-stage-high smile, and he jogs away.

\---

Jihoon sits on one of the benches in the lobby for half an hour or so, messing around on his phone. In front of him, the sea of people gradually empties into individual puddles here and there. Jihoon figures Soonyoung wants to ask him about music. He can’t think of any other reason Soonyoung would ask him to stay.

Soonyoung walks back into the building, mildly out of breath. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “It was just like, ending stuff. They gave us food, want some?”

Jihoon nods, and Soonyoung hands him a cookie. “Star-shaped,” Jihoon comments. “Subtle Christmas promo, nice.”

“Very nice.”

Jihoon takes a bite— it’s overly sugary, tasting like it was conceived and raised in a vat of factory chemicals, but he continues eating it anyway.

“Jihoon, so, you know how winter break is in a couple days?”

Jihoon nods. “Yeah, Joshua won’t fucking stop playing Michael Buble.”

“That sounds _great_ , actually. But— uh. Yeah. So I’ve been kinda wanting to do this for some time, I might as well do it now.”

Jihoon would like to think he’s not dense, but later he’ll realize that the fact the unease is registering only now is, all things considered, pretty stupid. “Wh—”

“Will you go out with me?”

The words come out in a rush and it takes a few long, painful seconds for Jihoon to register them. The hope is draining out of Soonyoung’s face at an exponential rate with every passing moment, and Jihoon doesn’t even recognize his own voice when his mouth says, “I’m sorry, but no.”

Jihoon doesn’t— Jihoon doesn’t _do_ relationships. He writes romantic songs but he never considers the thought of having someone to wake up to one day. Soonyoung— why would he like Jihoon, anyway?

“Oh, well, that’s fine.” Soonyoung’s mask is already back up. “Sorry if I made things awkward, you can forget about it, if you like.”

“I’m sorry.” Jihoon wants to slap himself. God, he’d kill someone if they apologized after turning them down, but the only things coming to his mind are cliches from movies.

“Don’t be, I’m not upset or anything,” Soonyoung laughs, the sound a little bit hollow. “Thanks for hearing me out. Anyway, Minghao’s my ride, and I don’t want to keep him waiting, so I’ll see you.”

“See you.” _Did that just happen?_

Jihoon sits on the bench for another few minutes after that, staring numbly into space. He’s not accustomed to getting these kinds of questions; the last time anyone asked him out was in high school, and he’d said no, then, too. Jihoon isn’t build for relationships. But the past five minutes loop over and over in his head, this terrible sense of unease in his stomach, and finally he walks into the snow hoping the cold will freeze out his memory and nothing would change.

\---

Soonyoung doesn’t text him in the days leading up to winter break, and Jihoon can’t say he’s surprised. He puts it out of his mind, though, gives Joshua a pair of Converse as an early Christmas present and stuffs his laptop and headphones into his backpack along with some spare change to head home for break.

Jihoon’s going back in Seungcheol’s car, a scratched-up metal contraption that occasionally releases ominous noises that sound like a cross between Seungkwan having a breakdown and a dying cat. He doesn’t trust that car as far as he can throw it, especially not in this kind of weather.

“If your thing kills us, I’m suing,” Jihoon says.

“First off, her name is _S. Coups_ , and second, you’re welcome to walk. Your mom likes me better, anyway.”

“You wanna fight, Choi Seungcheol? I’ll deck you _and_ your car.”

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow, obviously taking in Jihoon with his short stature and winter jacket, and says, “I’m getting threatened by a puffy blue marshmallow. Terrifying.”

Jihoon just glares and hefts his backpack into the truck, attempting to slam it closed, the metal plating groaning as it attempts to accommodate the miniscule amount of luggage. He climbs into the front seat and the two of them fight over the radio station for five minutes until they settle on some obscure punk-rock channel with Seungcheol mouthing along to the lyrics.

The roads are gray and white, covered with sleet, and Jihoon rests his cheek against the window and settles in for the ride, pretending he’s in a music video.

“So I see you made it out of finals intact,” Seungcheol says.

“Barely. Don’t mention those, they were fucking traumatizing.”

“Dude, my roommate was so stressed he nearly accidentally burned our dorm down. Don’t talk to me about trauma.”

Jihoon laughs. “How do you even _accidentally_ burn a dorm down?”

“I don’t fucking know, I’m not the one who did it. Ask him if you wanna know.”

“Shit no, your roommate terrifies me,” Jihoon says. “I don’t associate with people who have their lives together.”

“Didn’t I literally just tell you that he nearly started a fire?”

“That’s not good enough.”

An hour and a half in they stop at a gas station, and Jihoon buys a pretzel and a soda despite the fact it’s freezing outside. Seungcheol wraps his hands around a cup of coffee, which he’d poured at least half a can of sugar and creamer into it. Jihoon doubts it even constitutes as coffee at this point, but he gets it, since the convenience store stuff tastes like watery bean sludge to begin with.

It’s only when they’re almost there that Seungcheol makes his routine threat to drag Jihoon out socializing a couple times so that he doesn’t die in his bathtub over break. And Jihoon retorts something back about how he’d sure to die someplace cooler than the bathtub because what, was this a 1980s horror sitcom, but to be honest, Jihoon’s going to let him. Not like Seungcheol is that much of a die-hard extrovert either, no matter how much he pretends he is.

\---

Jihoon is welcomed back both by Seungcheol’s family and his own. That’s how they became friends in the first place, actually, because of their families. When Seungcheol moved in at age six, Jihoon’s mother had barged into their home with a large plate of noodles ( _she’s_ an extrovert, somewhere the DNA went wrong), and their parents had been best friends ever since. Jihoon and Seungcheol were always crammed into the living room together during get-togethers, and eventually it was easier just to get along.

So this is how Jihoon’s winter break ends up going: there’s a lot of food shoved at him from all directions, most of it amazing compared to what he eats at university. He works on songs. He checks people’s social media despite never alerting anyone of his presence, at one point accidentally hitting someone’s like button and panicking.

Seungcheol drags him to one party hosted by some people they knew back in high school, and Jihoon pretends to remember them.

On Christmas day, Jihoon is lounging around in pajamas and Seungcheol slides in with fuzzy socks. “Merry Christmas,” Jihoon grumbles. “It’s too fucking early.”

Seungcheol laughs, the way he does whenever Jihoon is being, well, _Jihoon_. “Why are you up, then?”

“You know that neighbor who’s got their house to the back of ours? With the six kids? I’m surprised that _anyone’s_ asleep at this point.”

“I miss believing in Santa,” Seungcheol mourns. “Now I only believe in being broke as fuck and still buying stuff for my asshole friends.”

“I happen to be one of those asshole friends, right.”

“You’re _the_ asshole friend,” Seungcheol says flippantly, and Jihoon never gets how Seungcheol can just be so free with his emotions like that. He pulls a badly wrapped gift out of his pocket and slides it over. “Happy birthday, you fuckwad.”

It’s a fairly good Christmas; his gifts are mostly clothes, although that’s fine, because he needs those. Seungcheol gifts him a pack of Pilot G-2s because he burns through pens so quickly and an awful shirt with a math pun on it that Jihoon actually sort of wants to wear. In return, Jihoon’s gifted him one of those athletic rollers, the kind that look like they’d be exceedingly painful to use but Seungcheol seems to really like.

At ten o’clock, he gets a text from Soonyoung. Jihoon doesn’t want to admit how fast he dived across the bed when the screen lights up.

**soonyoung:** MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS

**soonyoung:** sry if i haven’t talked much im being strangled w/ relatives

**soonyoung:** yesterday was this uncle passive aggressively commenting on my choice of a dance major which was a good time but HOW ARE U

**me:** im doing fine, sorry about your sucky uncle

**me:** merry fucking christmas to you too

And he doesn’t want to admit how warm Soonyoung’s text made him feel, either. Under everything for the past few days, he’d been a little unnerved, apprehensive that he might be losing a friend. But Soonyoung’s talking like nothing happened.

That’s... good.

\---

New Year’s passes with minimal fervor, Jihoon getting roped into making cookies and almost burning the entire batch. Seungcheol gets his hair dyed. He does that a lot, and Jihoon’s a little scared he’ll be bald by the time he’s thirty, but this time around is a natural black.

“What is this,” Jihoon asks in disbelief, “Choi Seungcheol _not_ looking like he was rolled out of an M&M factory?”

Seungcheol blushes, touches his hair self-consciously. “Does it look bad?”

“It doesn’t look bad,” Jihoon says. “Just… new.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You look you did from when you were like, five.”

At this, Seungcheol punches him with maybe five percent of his actual arm strength, and Jihoon half-heartedly ducks out of the way. The two of them are sitting on the couch; they’d been playing _Overwatch_ , but they’d switched the channel half an hour ago, per parental demand, to a channel actually related to New Year’s.

Jihoon yawns. “We staying up till midnight?”

“You stay up until fuck o’clock on a daily basis anyway,” Seungcheol points out. “And it’s the principle of the thing. Like wearing red underwear.”

“I’m too broke to afford red underwear.”

“Actually, same,” Seungcheol muses. Onscreen, there’s a shower of fireworks.

“Hey, remember that one time—” Jihoon starts.

“ _NO,_ ” Seungcheol shouts, and Jihoon smirks. One time, when the two of them were ten, Seungcheol had been traumatized for life by a rip-off pack of sparklers. After Jihoon had made sure that Seungcheol wasn’t going to die, he’d laughed. Hard.

“It’s _New Year’s,_ Jihoon,” Seungcheol says, mock-embarrassed. “We don’t fucking talk about that.”

“Technically, it isn’t anything yet. We’ve still got ten more minutes.”  

“You know what, you can take your nitpicky ass out of the door,” Seungcheol says, and promptly colors when a relative walks past them and shoots Seungcheol a dirty look. “God, we’re so sad. It’s New Year’s and we’re arguing about sparklers and red underwear.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “It’s my lameness dragging you down. I know at least _ten_ people who would be happy to change that real fast for you.”

“Do you even know ten people?”

“Low blow, Cheol. Low blow.” Jihoon gets up from the couch and heads to the kitchen, cutting a slice of sweet bread off the loaf and coming back into the living room. Seungcheol snatches a quarter of of it off of Jihoon’s plate, and Jihoon doesn’t even bother to glare.

One minute to midnight and the feed on the television screen switches from the performance onstage to a giant clock set up in the middle of the room. “We’re close,” Jihoon says.

Seungcheol picks a handful of confetti off the floor. “This’ll do.”

Countdown. _Five. Four. Three. Two. One_. “Happy New Year’s,” Jihoon and Seungcheol say at the same time, Jihoon drawling and Seungcheol saying it with actual enthusiasm, throwing the fistful of limp blue and pink confetti into the air.

“This was anticlimactic,” Jihoon says. “Don’t ask me to celebrate anything unless I’m suddenly able to fly. Or become invisible.”

“You’re short enough that you’re out of most people’s lines of sight,” Seungcheol offers, and ducks when Jihoon chucks a handful of streamers at him.

It’s dark outside the windows and the movement in the house turns sluggish as everyone starts heading to bed. Jihoon’s sleep schedule _is_ fucked up— he doesn’t really feel that tired, and neither does Seungcheol, if the way he hums and grabs another bite off Jihoon’s plate is any indication. Jihoon’s pretty sure he’s eaten at least half the chunk.

“Get your own fucking food next time.”

“Yours is right there, though,” Seungcheol says. He opens his phone, checking his texts. “Goddammit, it’s another New Year’s kiss selfie on someone’s Snapchat— I’m _done_.”

“Aw, someone’s bitter.”

“It’s just so generic,” Seungcheol grumbles, and Jihoon shrugs. Seungcheol’s been single for a few months now, solely out of his own accord— he hasn’t ‘found anyone who’s caught his attention.’ “For everyone watching.”

“We’re really going to kick off 2017 with you bitching about not having anyone to bang.”

“You know, if you put it that way— I blame you for always writing love songs. It’s your fault for setting expectations too fuckin’ high.”

Jihoon shrugs.

“You got anyone you wanna kiss, Jihoon?” Seungcheol says, wiggling his eyebrows, clearly a little bit uncomfortable with his past few statements. “How about that Soonyoung guy? You talk about him a lot.”

Jihoon chokes on his apple cider. “ _I’m not fucking kissing Kwon Soonyoung_.”

_I talk about him a lot_?

“Whoa— holy shit—”

Jihoon waves him off. “It’s fine, I just didn’t expect that, you asshole.” Seungcheol dips his head in a single skeptical nod, and the two of them watch a couple shitty Youtube videos before falling asleep with Seungcheol on the floor and Jihoon half dangling off the couch. Jihoon tucks his head into the crook of his arm and closes his eyes, unsettled by Seungcheol’s words.

\---

The day before break ends, Jihoon gets his hair dyed too, on a whim. He comes back to Joshua tacking up the anime posters he’d gotten as a Christmas gift, bags loaded with leftover Christmas food, and Jihoon runs into Soonyoung at _1997_ again a week in.

At this point, he’s starting to wonder if the whole confession thing was just a dream. Soonyoung’s texted him a couple of times after Christmas, all mundane observations. He’s good at not talking about things.

“Hi.” It comes out a little hesitant.

Soonyoung turns around. “Jihoon!”

He looks good. Like winter break was good to him. Jihoon self-consciously tugs at his hoodie, and Soonyoung’s eyes widen. “Wow, you dyed your hair!”

Oh. Yeah. Right. “Yeah, I did.”

“I swear, half of campus switched hair color over break. Jun looks like… a really fucking attractive grape,” Soonyoung says. “How’ve you been?”

Jihoon shrugs. He’s the same as he’s always been. “I’ve been okay. Nothing really happened over break or after it.” And then, because he’s awkward, “You?”

Soonyoung scrunches up his face. “Uh… on Christmas Seungkwan treated us to a really drunk rendition of _All I Want for Christmas Is You_ and Seok dressed up like a reindeer cause he lost a bet, but that’s about it.”

“And… also… I’ve been trying to write a song. Over break. It’s for another dance exhibit that won’t be happening for another couple of months, but it’s ultra-competitive. Last year I didn’t make it in. So I was wondering if you could help me?”

“Sure.”

Soonyoung beams, eyes crinkling. “Really? Thank you so much, Jihoon! I’ll pay you and stuff—”

“You’re not paying me,” Jihoon snaps, and Soonyoung freezes at his outburst. The idea that Soonyoung thinks that Jihoon would want something in return chafes at him the wrong way. “What do you need help with?”

“Oh—um,” Soonyoung says, finding his footing again. “Just like… the rap…”

“I can do that. Saturday at six work for you?”

\---

On Saturday, Soonyoung shows up five minutes late; Jihoon’s sprawled out on the bed typing an essay and Joshua’s leaning against the headboard with his chemistry book over his face. Jihoon’s the one that answers the door. “Oh, hey.”

“Hi,” Soonyoung says. “Sorry I’m late, Seungkwan was trying to kill me. So that held me up.”

Jihoon’s mouth quirks up slightly.  “Ah.”

“You look so amused over the prospect of me dying,” Soonyoung mutters, pretending to be affronted. “I like your guys’ posters, though.”

Soonyoung’s never been in their dorm before, Jihoon realizes. It’s not a big thing. But Joshua’s got an uncustomary expression on his face that Jihoon can’t decipher, Soonyoung standing still with his hands in his pockets in the doorway.

“Thanks, they’re mostly Joshua’s,” Jihoon says. “I’m too broke for merch.”

“So am I,” Joshua hastily retorts. “I got like, half of these for Christmas.”

Jihoon awkwardly gestures at Soonyoung to sit on the bed, and Soonyoung does, fishing a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothing it out on his jeans. “Um, the big chunk of text in the middle is the rap part. Ignore the doodles.”

Which, of course, means Jihoon’s eyes are _automatically_ drawn to the doodles on the sides, and Joshua looks over, asking, “You guys writing a song together?”

“ _No_ ,” Jihoon says, because for some reason the implications of that notion are too big to handle. “I’m just helping him with the lyrics.”

“Oh. Yeah, you’re good at that stuff.”

Jihoon continues scanning the sheet of paper. He can tell from the writing that Soonyoung hasn’t done this before, the awkward phrasings and just the general syntax of it, but it’s definitely something.

“Don’t judge me,” Soonyoung says quietly. “I know it sucks…”  

“It doesn’t suck.”

Soonyoung’s eyes curve into crescents. “That bad, huh?”

“What? No—” Jihoon struggles to construct the words into what he actually means. “I just meant... um, the meaning behind it is good. It’s powerful and I get what you’re trying to get across. You just need help with the logistics and stuff.”

Soonyoung nods, and Jihoon, glad that he’s managed to at least somewhat assure Soonyoung that he’s not straight-up insulting him, gets to work rephrasing and fitting the rhymes together. He can feel Soonyoung’s eyes on him as he works, and Jihoon gets that it’s hard. He doesn’t like to discuss his lyrics with people, would probably combust if he were in Soonyoung’s position at this moment.  

Jihoon himself operates under a good portion of walls. Soonyoung’s about twice as open, but the lyrics are of something he hasn’t shown before. _Hurricane_ is obviously about Soonyoung, but the part he keeps under wraps, the part that had to work to get him up onto the stage and the hours he put in for a three-minute piece of choreography. Jihoon, when changing the phrases, careful not to mess with the meaning, tries to make sure that minimum gets lost in translation.

“You’re so good at this,” Soonyoung murmurs, when Jihoon’s about halfway through.

Jihoon shrugs. “I mean, I do it a _lot_.”

“Still, this is like ten times better than what I had before.”

Jihoon chooses not to respond to that, instead asks, “Do you need help with the tune or anything like that?”

“No, I got that covered,” Soonyoung says. “Thanks, though.”

\---

**soonyoung:** actually uhhh is that tune offer is still up?

**me:** yeah it is

**soonyoung:** it’s not for me though,, it’s for my friend minghao… he says he’s got the lyrics and everything he just needs someone to put a tune to it

Minghao. Jihoon vaguely remembers his name— sometimes, Soonyoung will text photos of him and Minghao hanging out. Sometimes Minghao’s aware of the photography, holding up victory signs for the camera, and other times he’s not. Skinny. Wide-eyed. Cute.

**soonyoung:** so i told him about u cause ur good?? and he really liked highlight

**me:** sure why not

**soonyoung:** thanks jihoon!! u r amaz

\---

In February Jihoon is invited to Seokmin and Vernon’s combined birthday celebration— not really a party, just a thing to acknowledge another year of bone growth and mitosis. (Vernon’s words, not his.) It’s relatively small, a dozen or so people, and Jihoon’s surprised because he didn’t think Seokmin really thought of him as that close.

It’s at a nearby bar and karaoke place called _Carataoke._ Jihoon attempts to wrap two gift cards, giving up halfway through, and gets a ride with Joshua and Seungkwan.

Seungkwan looks like he put more effort into his looks than he usually does, and Jihoon wonders if he’s still got that thing going on with Vernon. He’s in a good mood, probably because Jihoon was the one who got relegated to the backseat, since Joshua _has_ to drive. It’s probably a jab at Jihoon’s height. Figures.

“What’d you get them?” Seungkwan asks.

Joshua turns the wheel to the right. “I got Vernon a signed copy of _Hotline Bling_ and Seokmin a pair of headphones.”

Seungkwan pulls a face. “Oh my god, Joshua, you’re making me look bad, I just got them gift cards.”

“That’s what I did, too,” Jihoon says.

“See? _Jihoon_ gets me,” Seungkwan says, craning his head to look backward.

Jihoon finger-guns.

Seungkwan finger-guns back. “Tonight’s gonna be fun. I’ll probably regret it tomorrow, but whatever, Joshua. You better sing this time around.”

“It’s _nerve-wracking_ , I’m the _only sober_ —”

“Well _someone’s_ got to stop Seokmin from hogging the mic and embarrassing himself in front of Jaehyun,” Seungkwan says loftily. “And to pull the fire alarm if Soon’s awful flirting gets out of hand.”

Jihoon, for a second, doesn’t know if he heard that right. And then he realizes he’s heard it fine and feels like he’s somehow missed out on the punchline of the century, except it’s actually not that amusing. “Soonyoung— what?”

Seungkwan laughs. “Dude, he’s been trying to get with Minghao ever since, what, I don’t know. It’s pretty funny.”

Bomb drop.

Okay, so…  Soonyoung likes Minghao. _Got it._  And Jihoon feels stupid, because that confession had been floating around the edges of his subconscious ever since break, but of course it didn’t really mean anything. Soonyoung _did_ say that it wasn’t serious— Jihoon probably overthought the entire thing.

That works out, then. So why does he feel so unsettled?

Jihoon’s quiet the rest of the ride, letting Seungkwan fill the silence, and tries to push the thought out of his head. Joshua wheels into the parking lot and Jihoon walks into the cold, shivering in his sweatshirt and jeans.

They run into Vernon outside the doors. Jihoon’s the one that knows Vernon the least, but Vernon says hi anyway. Jihoon wishes him a happy birthday and then lets him, Seungkwan, and Joshua be. Eventually, Seungkwan proclaims, “I’m fucking freezing,” after about five minutes, and they head inside, Vernon getting momentarily distracted by the selections on the old-timey karaoke machine.

“Happy birthday,” Jihoon tells Seokmin, when he sees him.

Seokmin grins. “You too.” A pause. “Wait, fuck—”

At that moment Soonyoung and Minghao walk in together, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Jihoon’s decision to grab the nearest solo cup and down half its contents. They’re talking, and Jihoon vaguely wonders if that’s what Soonyoung looks like when he likes someone. Like he’s got moons and stars inside his sleeves.

“Happy birthday, you fucking idiot!” Soonyoung yells at Seokmin.

“You’ve said that like seventeen times today,” Seokmin groans, not exasperated at all.

“It’s good luck.” Soonyoung jogs over, skids to a stop. He’s got his eyeliner on, clothes tighter than usual, and it doesn’t affect Jihoon at all. “Hey, Jihoon! That’s Minghao.”

“I know.”

Minghao’s also wearing tight black jeans and his face is a kind of deceptive soft, like if Jihoon poked at him too hard there’d be steel underneath. Jihoon thinks, _this is the guy Soonyoung likes. That’s cool._

“Hi,” Minghao says. “You’re Woozi, Jihoon, right? I never got to say thanks for _Highlight._ ”

Jihoon nods. “No problem. You danced really well.” He hopes that doesn’t accidentally come out sarcastic. He’s not good at giving compliments, but he meant that one.

Minghao smiles and oh, that’s what Soonyoung sees. “Thanks.”

Over the course of the night, everyone gets progressively more and more intoxicated, Jihoon included, even though he stops at a cup because tonight doesn’t seem like that good of a night to completely lose control. Everyone is surprisingly excellent at drunk karaoke; Wonwoo gets a lot of applause for his rapping and Minghao for his backflips.

Jihoon sings twice on principle and passes out almost as soon as he gets home.

\---

Soonyoung forwards him a copy of Minghao’s song lyrics in the morning and Jihoon puts together a tune in less than four days. Minghao’s lyrics are mysterious and gorgeous, about a different kind of love than Jihoon works with. Jihoon doesn’t wonder about it. He condenses the lyrics to a collection of syllables and rhyme and focuses on creating a melody that fits, sending the attachment to Soonyoung when he’s done.

And that would be that, except Minghao has to pay him.

They meet in _1997_ and Jihoon’s not sure why, but Minghao seems closed off,. Hesitant. He hands over the bills and says, “Thanks, it’s really good. Jun likes it, too.”

Jihoon’s about to ask who Jun is but remembers that’s probably who Minghao’s doing the showcase with. “That’s… good. Your lyrics were fun to work with.”

Minghao shrugs, says, “I wrote them after I watched this movie. I guess it worked out.”

It’s _fucking awkward_ and eventually they both give up on the hopes of conversation and Minghao leaves, jacket sleeves falling over his hands. Jihoon orders a coffee and lets it bitter taste of it burn his mouth.

\---

The universe sucks, so everything was bound to implode in Jihoon’s face at some point. He just didn’t know the specific time and way it’d happen.

But it’s Friday night at the end of March, right in the middle of midterms. Jihoon’s feverishly studying, his mind already burnt-out but still going, when his phone vibrates and continues vibrating. Jihoon wonders if T-Mobile is _that_ desperate for money, and Joshua looks over from where he looks like he’s either meditating or praying to ask, “Is your phone having a seizure?”

“Possibly,” Jihoon says. “I’m not the medical one, that’s Cheol’s job.”

He picks it off the cabinet and opens it. His lock screen is filled with notifications.

**soonyoung:** jihoon

**soonyoung:** jihoon

**soonyoung:** jihoon

Repeat.

Joshua looks over, highkey annoyed, and Jihoon tells him, “Soonyoung’s spamming me.”

To be fair, it’s probably not without reason. Again, Jihoon’s response time takes anywhere between fifteen to twenty minutes, and Soonyoung never really texts him anything that important, so there must actually be an issue here.

**me:** stop you’re fucking killing my phone

**soonyoung:** … sorry i just i got sexiled and i need osmeplac to study tonight

**soonyoung:** please id stay at seok n kwans but they already have 3 people over

**soonyoung:** i mean its ok if i cant but like itd be rly nice

_Why don’t you ask Minghao if you can crash over there?_

“Soonyoung got sexiled,” Jihoon relays out loud, annoyed at his own thoughts. “He’s asking if he can stay over for the night.”

Neither Jihoon or Joshua have had this problem before— Jihoon has always been painfully single and introverted and Joshua’s got his hands too full of his idiotic friends to do much of that himself, and even if he did he’d give Jihoon heads-up at least seventeen hours in advance.

Joshua immediately forgets his annoyance in light of this new information, since again, it’s _midterms_ , and he’s a nice person. “I mean, I’m perfectly okay with that, if you are.”

**me:** yeah you can

**soonyoung:** THANK YOU SO MUCH I OWE YOU MY LIFE

Jihoon’s phone shuts up after that, presumably due to Soonyoung leaving wherever the hell he is to head over to their dorm. Jihoon slides off the bed and onto the floor, concentration slashed. He doesn’t know how much more studying he can handle, but he grits his teeth and stares at his textbook, sentences swimming in front of his eyes.

Joshua’s given up on attempting to meditate and is now staring off into space.

There’s a knock on the door ten minutes later and Jihoon picks himself up and opens it, limbs feeling like they’re made of lead. Soonyoung’s holding a paper bag stained with grease. “I stopped for curly fries,” he says.

Jihoon’s pretty sure Joshua nearly keels over in thanks.

“You need to get sexiled more often,” Jihoon remarks, sliding some of the fries out of the bag. He wonders if payment in potato variations is just a thing all of Soonyoung’s friends do.

“How about _fuck no_.”

“I mean, you can stay here whenever,” Joshua tells him, sticking a fry into his mouth and looking marginally revived by the salt and grease. “Your roommate sounds…”

Soonyoung waves this off. “He’s not usually this much of an ass, like, he’s an okay roommate most of the time. He just… needed some stress sex and then forgot to work me into his schedule.”

Still sounds like a dick, in Jihoon’s opinion. Soonyoung slides his backpack off his shoulder, which is slightly wet from the drizzle outside, and sets it on the ground, taking a seat next to it and leaning against Jihoon’s mattress. “You can sit on the bed, you know,” Jihoon says, and Soonyoung shrugs, not moving. It’s interesting to watch Soonyoung fold himself up like that, like one of those collapsible tents, taking up less space than usual. He makes it almost so that he’s not present at all.

Joshua tilts his head thoughtfully before positioning himself on the ground near him, and Jihoon’s not going to be the odd one out so he takes a seat on the floor too. By this point it’s about eleven o’clock, and Jihoon’s tired so he lets his gaze wander to other things: Joshua’s anime posters, Soonyoung’s messy handwriting, the absentminded way he bites at his pencil.

Around midnight Joshua slams his book shut and announces, “I’m calling it quits for the night.”

He heads off to the bathroom and it suddenly occurs to Jihoon that’s there three of them and only two beds, and then he wonders why he didn’t think about that sooner. Gauging from Soonyoung’s expression, he’s wondering the exact same thing.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he immediately says. “It’s fine, I just need somewhere to stay.”

Jihoon’s annoyed. “You can take my bed, you know.”

“I’m not going to take the bed, then _you_ won’t have anywhere to sleep.”

“It’s literally not that big a fucking deal.”

Joshua comes out of the bathroom at this moment and volunteers that Soonyoung can sleep on _his_ bed, to which Jihoon immediately snaps at him for being a self-sacrificing ass, and at this point in the stalemate it’s more the principle of it than anything and it’s an unspoken conclusion that they’re all just going to sleep on the floor. Joshua drags his pillow off his bed and tucks it under his head, curling up on the carpet.

Jihoon focuses his eyes back on his notes and continues to scribble stuff down. He’s not sure he’s taking in information, or even if anything he’s writing down is making _sense_ , and eventually Soonyoung whispers, “Hey, Jihoon, you look really tired.” It sounds like his vocal chords are grating together.

Jihoon wonders if whispering is a foreign concept to him. “I’m fine.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I’m not fucking going to sleep,” he mutters stubbornly.

Jihoon can almost hear Soonyoung roll his eyes. The window panes, at this point, are nearly completely black— Jihoon can see a small sliver of moon. Soonyoung scoots over closer, says, “Sleep.”

“Hnnngh.”

Jihoon remembers, vaguely, the sensation of Soonyoung tilting his chin, fingers easing Jihoon’s head into the crook of his shoulder, and then Jihoon’s eyes shut and he slips into darkness for a few hours of dreamless sleep.

There’s a sense of disconnect when he wakes up, an unfamiliar song filtering through the quiet. He realizes ten seconds later that it’s SHINee’s _Replay_ and that his face is buried in a soft flannel sweatshirt, an arm wrapped around his waist.

Jihoon is tired and he hasn’t had any caffeine yet and the alarm bells sounding in his head are muted by the urge to turn around and fall back asleep. But Soonyoung’s dancer reflexes are better; he’s already scrambled a few feet back, the tiredness to his face replaced by a kind of hurriedly constructed nonchalance.

“Good morning,” he stammers. “I think we got a full three hours of sleep.”

And Jihoon thinks—maybe he wouldn’t mind waking up to Soonyoung more often, given that the circumstances were pre-planned and that he had a say in the alarm choice. Maybe he liked the feeling of the crown of his head tucked to Soonyoung’s collarbones and the press of his knees to Soonyoung’s thighs. And then he realizes: maybe he has more of a problem that he’d like to admit.

But all he does is peel himself off the ground, the fuzz of sleep deprivation clouding his mind like static, and walks over to the kitchen to grab a plastic bowlful of cereal. It’s midterms week. This is no time to have a crisis.

\---

But he doesn’t get to push it off for long.

He’s the kind of person who overthinks things, turns things over and over in his mind until knows every side and piece of it. The conclusion he comes to in less than a week is: _holy shit I like Kwon Soonyoung._ Also known as: _fuck, I like Kwon Soonyoung._ And maybe less known as: _Cheol is never going to let me hear the end of this._

Maybe Joshua figured it out before him. Probably.

There’s a kind of pain to it, though— Jihoon hasn’t really covered this scenario in any love song, although maybe he should. (The lyrics to _Love Letter_ were maybe completely based off what he heard of Wonwoo and Mingyu’s relationship catalyst, and Wonwoo had violently blushed when he’d rapped for it.)

But he doesn’t do anything about it, besides maybe berate his past self for not realizing it sooner, so that his own window of opportunity passed. Soonyoung likes Minghao now, or perhaps someone else; Jihoon doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. Besides, if Jihoon had said yes, Soonyoung would’ve probably lost interest soon. Soonyoung is built from crescendos and fire and sky, and Jihoon is transparent in comparison.

Joshua is sympathetic and lets Jihoon not talk about it, the way he never mentioned it before. Seungcheol, as predicted, does not let him off that easy.

“You look like you’re doing drugs,” Seungcheol comments. “Or that you’re an extra in the Walking Dead.”

They’re in the library and Jihoon’s writing a paper on music theory, Seungcheol messing around on his phone with his textbook discarded off to the side. He’s a disgustingly good student without even trying.

And Jihoon knows he looks bad. It always happens to him in the later half of the year, when he’s got more coffee in his veins than blood and he loses sleep in favor of cramming and songwriting. It’s maybe even worse than last year because, well.

Well.

Jihoon throws a pencil at him. “Shut up.”

“No, dude, seriously, those eyebags are impressive.”

“We can’t _all_ have centimeter long lashes to take the effect away,” Jihoon snaps. “Maybelline’s going to kidnap you for a makeup commercial someday.”

“Maybe it’s Maybelline,” Seungcheol mutters absentmindedly, “or maybe you’re just dead.”

“Maybe we’re _all_ dead.”

“Huh, Hell has better ramen than expected, then.”

“Stop pretending to be dark, you volunteer at camp over the summer,” Jihoon says, and Seungcheol picks up the pencil that Jihoon had thrown at him and chucks it right back.

They’re quiet for a couple of minutes, and then Jihoon digs his own fucking grave. “Hey, Cheol, do you know Soonyoung?”

“Hmm? Sort of, _you_ know him, and Joshua knows him, and I hear about his insane dance skills all the damn time. Why do you ask?”

Jihoon regrets everything. “No reason.”

He averts his eyes back to his paper with unreasonable focus and that’s all the answer Seungcheol needs. Jihoon can hear the pieces clicking into place in Seungcheol’s mind, and he thinks, _shit, what did I just do_.

“So I was actually right during New Year’s?”

“How the fuck do you still remember that? Actually, no, _we’re not talking about this_.”

“No, wait, we’re talking about this, you’re acting weird and it’s _great_ —”

“There is nothing to talk about,” Jihoon says, trying his best to glare, but Seungcheol is unfortunately extremely immune at this point and it does absolutely nothing to help his case.

“I can’t believe you actually _like_ someone. This is fucking _gold_.”

“What are you, five?”

“Are you?”

It’s only utter self control that allows Jihoon not to snap his pencil (and possibly Seungcheol’s arm.) He grits his teeth. This is probably a sitcom and a five-star reality TV show neatly wrapped up in a up-close burrito for Seungcheol right now. Jihoon does not _like_ people. He does not open himself up to the possibility of heartbreak. It’s probably ideology stemmed from a long list of deeper psychological issues, but Jihoon’s been functioning with that so far.

He still hasn’t told anyone about how he wrote _Adore U_ off of seeing Soonyoung dance. He knows that it was Soonyoung now. It makes sense.

“I don’t even fucking know at this point.”

“It’s okay,” Seungcheol says. “It was bound to happen at some point.”

“I’ll kill you once we’re out of the library.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Seungcheol says. He looks over at Jihoon’s paper, knitting his eyebrows. “How the fuck do you make sense of that stuff?”

Jihoon’s just glad for the veer in subject. “I don’t.”

\---

It’s not so bad.

He doesn’t usually see Soonyoung in person, only runs into him every once in awhile at _1997_ or other places, even though now he’s got even _more_ room for overthinking when he texts. Sometimes he feels like his chest is too full in the middle of the night, a kind of full that’s not a physical abnormality. Sometimes he’ll slip into daydreams during class of flame-colored hair and eyes shaped like the hands of a clock.

At least his song lyrics are more legitimate now.

Winter slips into spring and Jihoon swaps his oversized sweaters for t-shirts. He doesn’t really like spring, doesn’t like the uncomfortable medium the weather stands at and the way pollen makes him sneeze and how he doesn’t have the protection that winter offers. Soonyoung probably loves spring. It sounds like something he’d do.

In May, Jihoon’s liked Soonyoung for about two months, and the school year’s tapering off in that final squeeze before the end of the tunnel. The air is warm and Jihoon’s backpack is heavy with the weight of the information his professors are attempting to cram into his head before it all falls out again over the summer. He’s written another set of songs, one he particularly likes, _Pinwheel_.

**soonyoung:** come watch my dance showcase??? when finals are over

**soonyoung:** tickets don’t go on sale for another two weeks lmao im just too excited sorry

And there’s that. It seems like a long time ago when Soonyoung asked for Jihoon’s help with _Hurricane_ (at that point, Soonyoung had still liked him. Ha.) Jihoon doesn’t know anything about the choreography or really even the song beyond the rap, but Soonyoung’s been texting him vague mentions about it for the past four months.

**me:** will do  

\---

On June 6th, he and Joshua go to the showcase. Jihoon feels a vague sense of deja vu, except also not, because Joshua’s going with Jeonghan _on purpose_ this time around. Jihoon’s not planning on being either a cockblock or a third wheel, so he ends up discreetly splitting off in the middle of the parking lot.

Mingyu’s texted him beforehand that he was also going. Their conversation thread is rather threadbare and sad, consisting only of necessities— _Wonwoo can rap for you, I accidentally took your sweater from that party, we’re both going to see the showcase so let’s meet up!!_ — but sometime a while ago Jihoon had realized with a start they were kind of friends at this point.

Jihoon’s phone pings in his pocket, and Mingyu’s written, _hey meet me in the lobby_.

Jihoon does so. Mingyu is standing with Wonwoo, holding a small bouquet of flowers. Jihoon supposes he’s not going to avoid the fate of being third wheel tonight, but he doesn’t mind being a cockblock if it’s with those two. And Wonwoo doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d be into PDA, either, given the time Jihoon’s spent with him.

Mingyu brandishes the roses. “Jihoon, over here!”

“Calm down with the fucking flowers,” Jihoon grumbles, “they’re going to die if you manhandle them like that.”

“Alright, Mr. Florist 101.” Mingyu hands the bouquet over to Wonwoo, though.

Wonwoo looks down at the flowers thoughtfully. “I don’t think Jun and Minghao would mind dead flowers that much, actually.”

Confession time: Jihoon doesn’t really like when Minghao’s name is brought up. He’s aware this is irrationally petty and jealous and kind of hates himself for it, but unfortunately that’s the instinct reaction.

“Have either of you seen their choreo?” he asks, as a self-rebuke of sorts.

“I’ve seen Minghao’s half of it, backflipping all over the goddamn dorm,” Mingyu says. “And I heard the tune you made for them. It was really good.”

Wonwoo smiles. “Yeah, well, Jihoon’s a good composer.”

Jihoon feels warm at that. Wonwoo and Mingyu aren’t the third-wheeling kind of people, he realizes, not all that wrapped up in each other the way some couples are. He follows them over to the auditorium and takes a seat next to them, and Mingyu’s even better than Joshua at the sneaking-in-food thing because when he unzips his sweater he’s got at least seven Airheads taped to the inside of it.

He drops the Airheads, and Jihoon reconsiders.

“Okay,” Mingyu says, checking the program. “Jun and Minghao’s thing is in the first half of it, and— oh, dude, you know Jeongguk? He’s right after them. And then Chan’s group act is in the middle…”

“Jeongguk’s the guy you work with at _1997_ , right?” Wonwoo asks.

“Yeah, that guy, everyone goes in there to flirt with him and it’s annoying but also fucking hilarious. He never knows how to respond.”

Jihoon takes the program from Mingyu and looks. Most of the names on here, he realizes, he’s heard at some point or another, the kind of people who are known around campus for being good at dance. The exhibit is packed. Soonyoung wasn’t kidding when he said it was competitive.

“Jihoon, you also helped Soonyoung write his rap, right?” Mingyu says. “Anyone else? Is this entire showcase just one big Woozi OST?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Thankfully, before Mingyu can be any more sincere and clumsy, the announcer gets onstage and starts rattling off the opening speech. Jihoon peels open the Airhead. He never knows how to eat these, but it’s the blue kind, so he’s happy about that.

It’s almost jarring when the opening notes of _My I_ begin to play, the connection between this showcase and Jihoon’s own compositions almost a delusional thread in his mind. Jihoon doesn’t know enough about dance to understand the complexities of the choreography, all he knows is the twist of the ribbon and the impossibly synchronized the two of them move.

_Jun, right_? That’s the other guy’s name.

Jihoon is a mix of envy and admiration, because the story the two of them create with their lyrics and their moves is so impossibly beautiful. Glass pieces reflecting sunlight and dark smoke twisting around silver thorns. Can he ever do that? No wonder Soonyoung liked Minghao. There isn’t even bitterness to that thought.

But none of it prepares him for _Hurricane_.

Soonyoung walks onstage dressed in all black, this dangerous kind of sexy that probably causes half of the audience to have a crisis right on the spot.

Soonyoung starts off slow, like the quiet release of a puff of a smoke, his gaze dark and smoldering as he stares into the audience. The stage presence is insane. And then the chorus hits and it’s like the dip of a rollercoaster, that exact spot when it goes perfectly vertical then plunges down into a series of twists and turns. Soonyoung moves like bottled motion, like he’s the limelight in human form, and Jihoon squeezes his hands into fists so hard he’s certain he’s going to have crescent marks on his palms an hour later. Soonyoung sends a smirk at the crowd and lowers himself to the ground.

Jihoon bites his lip so hard he thinks he draws blood. Next to him, Mingyu’s losing it, and Jihoon thinks, this isn’t _fair_ . He’s already in so deep and now this? _Fuck_.

\---

“That was sick,” Mingyu yells, as they squeeze out of the entrance into the lobby. “Oh, shit, I think the roses got squished, dammit— where’s Jun and Minghao?”

Jihoon’s palms have red crescents in them and his legs kind of feel like rubber, and there’s loop of Soonyoung hip-thrusting on the ground stuck on replay in his mind. _Thank you, hormones, and stupid decisions_. Christ.

“There they are!” Mingyu answers himself, and he and Wonwoo get lost in the sea of people as he goes over to congratulate them. Jihoon blinks. Wait, where’d they go?

Five minutes later— “Jihoon!”

Jihoon swivels around, and Soonyoung’s standing there, beaming, stage makeup smudged and people yelling congratulations at him as they pass by. “Hi.”

He thinks he might actually combust.

There’s a vague sense of circular resolution to this whole scenario. This was what had happened at the winter showcase too, Soonyoung with his cheeks all bunched up and cute like he hadn’t just mauled the entire audience. Except back then it’d been the other way around, in terms of who liked who.

What had Soonyoung said? About not having to see Jihoon for two weeks. Well, then, shouldn’t an entire summer be enough?

“Hey, Soonyoung,” he starts, and it should be hard, the fall. But he lets go of the words easy as anything— they’re just words, letters and syllables given meaning by history. The rest is difficult. The rest is fire and uncertainty and enough vertigo for a daredevil to walk a tightrope across. “I like you.”

Soonyoung drops his flowers. “I’m sorry? I think I misheard you?”

“I like you.” There it is. The sick feeling settling down to his gut.

“Hey, Soonyoung, nice job out there!” someone yells at him, and Soonyoung swallows and whirls around to say thanks. Then he grips Jihoon by the wrist, and he’s not exerting that much effort but Jihoon’s basically limp, and drags him out of the lobby and into and one of the tributary hallways. The noise fades to background and it’s just them.

“You don’t want an audience to me embarrassing myself,” Jihoon says. “Nice.”

Soonyoung takes his hand, rubs it across his face. It’s not a good decision because there’s stage makeup _everywhere_ and Soonyoung’s really sweaty. It’s a testament to how deep Jihoon’s in that even that’s kind of hot. “I just. You…”

Jihoon folds his arms. “Yep.”

“So you—”

“Oh my god,” Jihoon groans, because not only does he have to dig his own grave, he’s got to spell out his tombstone too. “It’s a goddamn confession. _Spare me_.”

“Okay… okay.” Jihoon wonders if Soonyoung would be easier to read if he wasn’t wearing so much makeup. If he was less close. “So, you wouldn’t mind me doing this.” He touches Jihoon’s chin, lifts his face up. Jihoon isn’t sure he’s registering anything anymore. Soonyoung leans down, eyes a question, and the way Jihoon instinctively rises up to meet him must be answer enough because he leans down and kisses him.

There’s no music but it feels like a song.

Kissing is— no prior experience necessary.

Jihoon’s always hated his height, hated how it leaves him wide open to teasing, but the way they fit together is a silver lining. Jihoon can feel Soonyoung smiling. That’s it, that’s the extent of how much his mind can handle right now, clouded over with static and shock. That Soonyoung’s smiling, he can feel the curve of it against his mouth.

It probably goes on longer than any first kiss should have any right to go, not that _Jihoon_ can tell, since he’s lost all track of time, but when they break apart Jihoon’s breath is coming out fast and erratic and Soonyoung’s face is bright red.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’ve wanted to do that since like, last October.”

“It’s okay,” Jihoon tells him. His vocal chords aren’t operating right. His voice might be an entire octave too high. “I wanted to do it since maybe two months ago.”

Soonyoung shrugs. “Guess I should’ve held off asking you out for another four months, then.”

“I still can’t believe you did that.” _And that I turned you down_.

Eye contact is difficult. Jihoon’s just staring at the ground, at his faded sneakers. Soonyoung is so painfully bright. The haze is clearing out of his mind and logic sets back in, and Jihoon says, “I heard from Seungkwan that you liked Minghao, though.”

“Well, that’s obviously not the case,” Soonyoung says, gesturing at the space between them. Jihoon internally implodes. “I mean, I tried to. But like, I had a hunch he liked someone else, and anyway, sometimes you’re just meant to be friends with someone, you know? I just really admired his dancing.”

“Okay.”

“Are you jealous?”

Jihoon’s blush darkens even more than it originally was, but Soonyoung doesn’t get to do that to him. “Of his dance skills? Who wouldn’t be?” he says, attempting to adopt a lofty voice but probably falling miserably short of it.

Soonyoung grins. “Okay.”

“... Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“What are we, _Fault In Our Stars_ right now?”

“God, I hope not, neither of us are dying,” Jihoon says, pulling a face. He’s so warm. Both temperature-wise and the way his chest feels right now, like someone poured an entire bucketful of stars into it.

“I think I’m supposed to be at a bakery thing right now,” Soonyoung remarks.

Jihoon groans. “The— _go to your fucking bakery thing_. Don’t let me hold you up.”

\---

Soonyoung is good at this stuff. It actually stands to reason, because he’s friends with practically everyone and knows how to do this thing where he can make you feel like the most special person in the room, but it’s a whole different thing when it’s on the romantic spectrum.

Jihoon still doesn’t know what he’s doing. He has trouble showing affection. When he told Seungcheol the two of them were going out, he did it so awkwardly Seungcheol fell off the couch laughing. Just because he writes love songs doesn’t mean he knows anything about actually being in a relationship.

(Two days after the showcase, the day before summer, Jihoon had half-jokingly, half-exasperatedly told Soonyoung that he’d never held anyone’s hand.

Soonyoung had twined their fingers together and said, “Well, now you have.”

It was kind of disgusting. It was also kind of beautiful.)

Summer is a wide stretch of two and a half months and Jihoon’s fingers get sticky-blue from popsicles and he’s grudgingly started wearing shorts outside. Seungcheol goes to his hometown again, for half of the summer. Joshua isn’t going to the states, though, and he’s only a couple miles away, and so it’s a little better this year.

Soonyoung lives two hours away, but he keeps up his routine of texting and occasionally the two of them meet in the middle to go on dates, term used loosely. Soonyoung, as a boyfriend, operates like a friend who sometimes sticks his tongue in Jihoon’s mouth and says really embarrassing things.

In August, Jihoon ends up staying over at his home for two days. He’s not going to lie; he’s terrified of Soonyoung’s family.

“Don’t be,” Soonyoung says. “My mom, like, loves you.”

Jihoon sticks an elbow into his ribcage. “I also feel like she’s going to shoot me if I do anything to you.”

“Are you _planning_ to do anything to me?”  

This is accompanied by a joking raise of the eyebrows and Jihoon blushes so hard and fast he’s pretty sure his temperature shoots up by seventeen degrees. “ _No_ , you fucker.”

“Just keep complimenting her noodles and I think you’ll be fine,” Soonyoung laughs. “Really. She thinks you’re sweet.”

Jihoon’s the farthest thing from sweet but that’s not the worst impression he could’ve made, so he’ll take it. They’re sitting on Soonyoung’s bed, accompanied by the whir of shitty air con, watching anime on Jihoon’s phone because Soonyoung’s phone is cracked in twelve places. (“ _How’d you even manage to do that?”_ ) (“ _I’m friends with Seokmin and Seungkwan.”_ )

A notification pops up onscreen and Jihoon kind of wants to die.

**cheol:** lolol i head from joshua you’re staying over w/ soonyoung??

**cheol:** (winky face) (winky face) (winky face)

Soonyoung falls off the bed laughing, and Jihoon swipes the phone out of Soonyoung’s hand and types back, _cheol i’m going to murder you_ , before muting the chat.

“You sure you’re not planning on doing anything to me?” Soonyoung laughs.

“Not originally, but now I’m very tempted to castrate you.”

“Graphic.” Soonyoung climbs back on the bed, neatly folding himself back up. “You can tell Seungcheol we’re _really_ not going to be doing anything, because unfortunately I’ll be lacking the necessary—”

Jihoon shoves him. “ _Stop right there_.”

\---

Jihoon’s brought a sleeping bag because he isn’t sure he can handle the implications of what _not_ bringing one would be, so he spreads it out on the floor and gets in and ends up actually staying in it for maybe a grand total of half an hour.

He can hear the sound of footsteps, and then there’s Soonyoung, palm warm against the skin of Jihoon’s wrist. “Hey,” he whispers. “Sleep with me?”

Jihoon turns around and buries his face into his pillow. “Please rephrase that.”

“...Occupy the same mattress space as me?”

Jihoon would tease him and protest but he doesn’t think he has the mental capacity to right now, what with the fact his entire brain feels like it’s been hotwired. Also, neither he nor Soonyoung are that good at whispering, so he stands and walks over and climbs into the mattress, Soonyoung following.

Soonyoung, for all his bluster and energy, has mostly let Jihoon set the pace, and so as much as he jokes about _doing things_ he’s never actually asked that much of anything. It’s a little bit terrifying, that kind of power.

It’s warm outside and the extra body heat isn’t doing him any favors. But the mattress is soft, and Soonyoung’s skin is soft where they’re making contact, and Jihoon likes the way his head is curled into Soonyoung’s chest and the way their legs are tangled together. Sometimes, he still isn’t sure why Soonyoung sticks around. But one thing’s changed: Jihoon’s planning to hold on for as long he can.

**Author's Note:**

> [to any multifandom carats, my friend’s hosting a jhope bday fic ex, if you’re into that!! https://twitter.com/94linemods] 
> 
> im so excited for teen, age clap’s going to kill me and rocket’s going to bring me back, u have no idea im crying tears of rose quartz and serenity im wearing a hat but i’ve lost my wig lsafjlkdfj setting an alarm for 11/6!! do i even make sense at this point


End file.
